So far this year this 09 Aston Martin Vantage has been one of my favorite details. I really enjoyed detailing this car from top to bottom. There are a lot of pictures in this article, not everything I shot, but enough to get a good idea on how to transform an already stunning looking car to it’s very best!

This car was absolutely beautiful when the owner had dropped it off. Rarely do you see a second owner pick-up a used car in such great shape. The vehicle had 3400 miles on it when the new owner took purchase. I’m pretty sure he knew he picked up a beautiful car, but was also keen enough to know that it could look that much better. Light colored paint on an exotic vehicle of this nature makes it very difficult to spot defects under natural sunlight. Aston Martin always looks beautiful and elegant, even when dirty or with defects. This car had loads of wet-sand marks and pigtails and I always take great pleasure in being the first one to dial the paint in on cars like this, that have never been corrected or professionally detailed.

Sanding marks are certainly not uncommon with Aston Martins. The manufacturer takes extra steps to ensure a higher quality finish for the end product. I don’t get upset with high-end manufacturers about these small little details. Instead I prefer to to call them marks of love and I wish all vehicle manufactures took these extra steps. Basically these cars undergo being painted then sanded down with DA sanding discs (to level the paint surface) and finally polished back out. Manufacturers that pump out volumes of vehicles would never take these extra steps in the final process. High-end vehicles (exotics/Aston Martin) ensure quality behind the build and these marks prove it. I could chase DA sand marks all day long and this type of paint correction and detail work has my utmost attention.

In the below pictures, I will point out sanding marks (pigtails) and how they appear under closer inspection.

Note: You will see the amount of luster that is lost from the top surface of the paint. Without the benefits of paint correction these areas of paint would always be “less” in the overall looks. Masking over the issues with a single step polish or some type of LSP would not remove them, they would just be more hidden for a short period of time. Removing them safely through our paint correction steps is the only way to gain all the best potential the paint has to offer.

As we can see from the pictures above, the DA sanding marks are pretty uniform in shape and appearance. The top surface of the paint is supposed to have the greatest reflective abilities. You can get an idea of how this would be a problem. If this car was black for example, the paint would be very dull in these isolated spots. Without sounding disrespectful to the manufacturers (but in truth), the lighter colored paints usually have the most amount of problem areas when it comes to exotics.

50/50 shots:

Meguiar’s 3″ Cutting Disc’s & Finishing Disc’s are great and much safer for edge work. Priming the pads before use with Megs D300 is very important. Making sure that every fiber on the pad was covered before using Megs 105 for my active cutting agent. The chances of burning any edges is less likely to happen with a fully primed pad. If needed you could also work at slightly lower speeds with the DA to achieve healthy results. Porter Cable 7424 was my choice on some of the edge work done. Either a rotary or a small throw DA is great for getting as close and tight to an edge as possible. What you are seeing in the picture below is simply a 3″ rotary backing plate with an adapter. It gives a rather good extension and is very useful most of the time. 3M masking tape wrapped around the metal housing for the “what if” scenario. It’s very preferable that metal never touches paint and just another precautionary step I always take. Once the cutting and correcting process is complete with the cutting disc’s and M105, I’ll then switch over the Megs Finishing Disc’s and M205 to finish the paint off to a brilliant shine (priming the finishing disc w/M205 fully). Over the years I have always found these tools to be exceptionally safe and extremely effective, even on the most delicate edges of paint work!

The bonnet of the vehicle was in fairly good shape. The front end was partially clear filmed and the PPF was in great shape. I felt no reason to remove film that was in this great of shape. I presume the first owner had it done recently before the second owner took purchase. However, I can pretty much guarantee that we could have found some DA sand marks on that front bumper. I told the owner to ride that film out and we can correct those other issues down the road. He agreed with my thinking and professional opinion.

The top side of the bonnet however was not filmed and needed a few issues addressed. A few small pigtails right along side the mesh grills needed to be corrected. The only safe way to correct the marks would be to remove the mesh grill. I’ve also seen one to many of these caked up with old wax or polish. With the grill removed we can inspect and clean before putting it back on.

The nuts and washers that hold the grill into place are plastic and usually finger tight. I always lay a towel down before removing these in case if I were to drop one of the nuts or washers. Just another precautionary step.

The isolated DA sand marks may have taken one and two passes with the compounding/correction stage to get right, but the majority of the of the lager sections were fine to be corrected with the Megs 205 and a Yellow Rupes foam pad.

The Flex rotary PE14 still has it’s place in a correction process. I chose to use a rotary and 3″ foam pads on the rockers. With the contour shape of these rockers I find it easier to get a better angle and fuller coverage with each pass. Ease of pressure and arm speed make it easier to scallop in on these types of shapes. Tossing a DA in these sections can sometimes be a hassle when trying to keep the pad flush to the surface. The rotary does not necessarily have to stay flush at all times while making the passes. Manipulating the rotation of the rotary and side angles of the pad are more comfortable for me when doing most vehicle rocker panels and having the various types of tools and pads will come in handy on every detail.

Once at this point I ended up removing the old dealership clear-film on the front side of the rear fenders. They were yellowed pretty bad and causing a major eye sore to the vehicles side profile appearance.

In between the compounding and polishing passes I always make a point to IPA as I go. Any amounts of dust or residue that gets kicked up in the correction process can be rather annoying. Compressed air, brushes and dusters are a great ways of keeping the vehicle clean as we go. I spent a great deal of time on these wheels in the decontamination process and do not want to keep cleaning them again and again. Before getting started with the paint work I sealed the wheels with a very nice wheel wax then covered them in plastic to prevent any spill over mess. Peel the masking away when all else is complete and boom! It all just falls together in a very stress free way!

Below: Picture before the completion of correction. This one falls out of order, but hope to convey the idea.

The correction and refinement machine polishing work took about a day and a half. Once that was done and all the masking tape was peeled away I went around the vehicle with a full IPA wipe down (again, even though I was IPA wiping as I went. It’s a habit!). Well the point of it is, to have the paint surface as clean and oil free as it can be before protecting the car with an LSP!

I’ll take the time to clean out all the nooks and crannies and get the car completely dustless before waxing. With the amount of time spent on the paint surface, I do not want to pick up some loose debris and take the chance of causing any scratches to the dialed in paint. This would also be the time where I would get all the door jams, door handle, keyhole, tail pipes, grill, emblems, windshield wipers and molding, glass and trim all detailed and protected.

So I have this absolutely beautiful gem of a car here. The customer will be keeping the miles low and driving it occasionally. The car will be garage kept and mostly used for those special occasions. After all the proper prep work and detailing this coat of wax will last a great deal of time considering the amount of use. And the car will look absolutely amazing wearing its all natural paint and color.

The interior received a thorough vacuum and brush dusting all the way through, along with leather cleaning and conditioning.

When opening your car door you really want those first impressions to stand out. The rubber molding on this particular vehicle is rather noticeable with the door open and needed something to fit the rest of the mold. After cleaning the trim I protected it with Swissvax Nano Express. A great product for multiple uses.

Swissvax Nano Express is by far one of my favorite dressings for details like this one. As I’m looking to achieve a very clean look on the car with no overly dressed, oily types of appearance. This is a great product and offers a very natural clean look.

All water spotting and dirt was cleaned from under the bonnet and then waxed. If it was painted, it was cleaned and waxed in this detail. Being sure to clean and protect every piece of material with nurturing products for that piece of material.

Love this tire dressing, not overly shinny. But offers a very nice clean look.

It’s all about the details

A glance under the trunk lid, carpet striping.

Final pictures before delivery

One of the points I would like to make about this detail is: Even a very beautiful car that’s in excellent shape can benefit immensely from some extra TLC. DA sand marks are found on most all exotic vehicles and can be corrected to achieve a better than factory finish. If you’re in the Florida area (or not) and have questions or concerns about the condition and protection of your car, give me a call! We can put together a detail that suits your driving habits and needs.

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Another super car with the normal factory defects. Much like the Lamborghini Murcielago Paint Correction article. Getting a new car prep and coating done for a car like this consists of more than just a single step polish.

White cars being the more difficult to notice pigtails and sand marks from factory, this car could have been much worse (I’ve seen much worse on white before). So this tells me that Audi did a rather exceptional job on this new 2014 R8 Spyder. Correction and Polishing on Carbon Fiber will be at hand here in this detail!

The pigtails and sand marks on the car were vary minimal. Most were found at the rear of the vehicle and in small batches. Other than that, the car was amazing to work on! The paint was very easy to work with for the areas that needed “not so much” polishing. Rupes 15 and Meg’s Cutting Disc’s w/ M105 handled it with ease on the large panel sections and Porter Cable w/ 3″ cutting disc’s did perfect in the corners and tight area’s. Flex Rotary and foam pads were also used in the assist of finishing down in the more contour areas.

IPA wipe downs are very important in this detail. In between every pass a IPA wipe was being done. And 2 full IPA wipe downs were done after the car was finished down. When doing your wipe downs I would suggest wiping in one direction without dragging the towel back in the opposite direction. Using two towels to complete the final wipe down (One that has the moistness from the IPA and the other being dry and clean). Going back and forth with the same towel will pull the oils back and forth as well. Kinda like smearing it across the paint. It is important to use 2 towels on the final IPA passes.

With the car being coated the above IPA wipes are very important.

First “optional” step in a Modesta Coating is the P-01A Primer. I applied the primer to the paint with a white Rupes pad and the Rupes 15 at a very slow speed setting (speed 2 or less). Going over the entire paint surface then allowing the P-01A to haze for a few minutes before wiping it all down. This primer will need to set for 180 minutes before I can apply the Glass Coating. The use of the primer will make for amazing looks and allow the BC-05 coating to go on and off a little bit easier. Mostly I just love the looks this product puts off!

Below: Some very small pigtails along the door creases were handled with 3″ cutting disc and Porter Cable at speed 4 w/M105.

The wing of the car was by far the worst area, that’s really rather good considering …

The tail lights needed some TLC if the rear end of this car is going to pop! They had a dreadful loss of luster to them … 50/50

The lower rockers of the car were time consuming and very very large as you get further to the underside. After this detail, the thought of getting a small lift …”+1 again, not a bad idea”

Looking great and ready for coating!

In between cure times is a good time to continue with the other details to ensure no UN-wasted time.

By the time the coating was down I was greeted by Daniel at Clear Detail who actually took care of the interior for me. During the course of this detail I took myself to the hospital, to make a long story short, they kept me for a few days and I was most grateful for Daniels help!

After the BC-05 Modesta Glass Coating was cured, M1shot was then used as the final wipe down to complete the detail!

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]]>http://www.detailedimage.com/Ask-a-Pro/audi-r8-spyder-detail-and-modesta-coating/feed/11My Favorite Two Stage Polishing Routineshttp://www.detailedimage.com/Ask-a-Pro/my-favorite-two-stage-polishing-routines/
http://www.detailedimage.com/Ask-a-Pro/my-favorite-two-stage-polishing-routines/#commentsThu, 12 Sep 2013 12:00:36 +0000http://www.detailedimage.com/Ask-a-Pro/?p=11319This article follows the initial article listing My Favorite One Stage Polishing Routines. In that article, I discussed a few different options available do detailers when faced with a job where only one polishing stage is to be done. Similarly, in this article I wanted to list a few pad and polish combinations I like to use when performing two stages of polishing on various types of paint. Below I will reference products I listed in both previous articles about A Few Pad and Polish Combinations I Use Regularly and Polishing Supplies for Experts and Beginners, so it may be helpful for some to browse through the other articles and get a better understanding of why I like some of these products. One note, for purposes of simplifying things, the Meguiar’s “307.5 WGCI” (mix of M105 and D300) from the A Few Pad… article linked to above is now called MD405 for obvious reasons :). In any case, onto the two stage polishing routines…

This combination is what I like to use on paints that are harder to correct and easier to finish. Most Audi, Mercedes and BMW vehicles have fairly resilient paint, which tends to need a bit more work to correct well. I find that on such paints, the combination of Meguiar’s microfiber pads and the MD405 works really well to eliminate moderate to heavy defects and still leave a nice finish behind that only requires one finishing stage. I wouldn’t use this on any of the sensitive jet black paint finishes if I’m doing only two polishing stages because it tends to leave a lot of marring and buffer marks behind, which may require more than the one finishing step to eliminate. M205 with the Crimson pad works very well to eliminate any light marring left behind from the first stage and leave a very nice, glossy finish, ready for protection.

This is my “go-to” combination on most two-stage correction work. I find that the orange pad and MD405 can vary greatly in terms of correction and finish left behind when used with different techniques (speed, arm movement, pressure, amount of product, etc.) so I can use it as a compounding stage on almost any paint. On more delicate paints, I tend to lessen the pressure and speed in order to correct as much as possible but also leave a nice finish behind that can easily be corrected with either M205 or Sonax Perfect Finish paired with a Crimson finishing pad. Unless I’m dealing with an extremely hard paint to correct, this combo normally eliminates 80-95%+ of defects and leaves behind a wax ready finish.

For paints that are a bit on the delicate side, I step down my correcting step from MD405 to D300 paired with an Orange pad. Jet black Porsche or BMW vehicles that are normally very finicky and hard to work with correct really well with D300 and Orange, which leaves very little marring to clean up afterward. Sonax Perfect Finish and a Crimson pad quickly take care of this marring and leave a glossy finish. As mentioned above, technique can also vary here and D300 can leave some deeper marring in sensitive paint when used with a random orbit or dual action polisher, so it’s necessary to figure out the best technique for this combo.

Lastly, this is my last resort for two-stage polishing routines when dealing with very sensitive paint. As mentioned above, I try to get as much correction out of D300 and Orange pad while leaving a nice finish, but that’s normally the easy part. The hard part on some of these sensitive paints is leaving a swirl-free finish and that’s where product and pad selection, along with technique, comes into play. I find that Menzerna SF4500 is one of the best fine finishing polishes available, so pairing that with a soft finishing pad like Crimson or Black tends to do a great job at leaving a perfect finish on the paint. It lightly corrects so it can eliminate the light marring left over from the compounding stage, but just as importantly it leaves a great finish over which wax, sealant or a coating can be applied.

As with my article on one stage polishing, I want to close out by saying these are definitely not the be-all-end-all combinations to use when doing paint polishing work, but they are what works great for me most of the time and should be a great starting point for many others. Thanks as always for reading and I welcome any comments or questions.

The idea for this article came after two recent detail get-togethers I was fortunate enough to attend. About a month ago, I hosted a local detailers meet at my shop and everyone in attendance had questions on what products are good, what products are great and what products are a complete waste of time. Then, more recently, I was fortunate enough to be invited as a guest instructor by Todd Cooperider to his Esoteric Elite Detailer Acadamy. During Todd’s classes, one of the very main points was using and properly utilizing products that work well, all while avoiding too much experimenting with the hundreds of other products on the market. Don’t get me wrong, experimenting with products is great and it allows us to see what’s new and what’s better in the detailing industry. However, as a business owner, especially a busy business owner, or as a detail enthusiast who doesn’t have the money to try out numerous products out there, it is much easier to buy a single product that comes highly recommended by reputable sources in the industry.

Considering the questions asked and information gathered throughout the two events, I wanted to write an article that helps those in search for the “right” products and eliminates spending too much money to find them. In other words, this is a very short list of products meant for polishing paint, which I have chosen based on my experimenting with many other products over the years and my experience with the listed products that I use on pretty much every detail job. I have found that these products are not machine dependent, so while I won’t be recommending any polishers, I want to state that I use a Flex XC 3401 VRG for 95% or more of my detail work.

That said, here are the products that I have come to find absolutely necessary when doing paint correction and products that allow me to do great work on well over 95%+ of paint finishes. The other 5% are what we like to refer to as nightmare paints. These include the very soft jet blacks (on BMWs, Porsches, and VWs for example) that are extremely difficult to properly finish polish, as well as the extremely hard paints found on some Audis, Mercedes and Corvettes, which require good ol’ “sand in a bottle” :). Aside from those few random hard jobs, these products should allow beginners and professionals alike to get the high quality results we all seek. In short, these are the products every beginner should buy when getting into polishing work because I assure you all of them will stay in your arsenal for many years to come and will be used on a regular basis.

As many already know, Meguiar’s Ultra-Cut Compound M105 was a game changer the moment it hit the market. It is capable of fairly heavy correction when used properly and paired with an aggressive polishing pad, but considering how aggressive it can be, it still leaves a very fine finish. M105 is extremely versatile as well in that it can be used effectively with a rotary, dual-action, random orbital and by hand. Regardless of the method used, it does great work at removing deep defects. When performing a 2 stage paint correction job, I mainly like to use M105 with the orange Lake Country cutting pad on my Flex because it takes out a majority of defects even on harder paints and leaves a finish that can easily be refined with just one additional step of polishing. M105 is the first step in doing proper and safe correction when doing machine polishing and should be in every detailer’s arsenal, whether beginner or professional.

Meguiar’s D300 Compound is another great product that came out together with their microfiber pads. It’s focus was to enhance paint correction via dual-action and random orbital machines, making the gap between rotary + wool and dual-action machines even smaller. While not as aggressive as M105, D300 is capable of doing some serious correction and almost always provides a very clear finish, which needs only one finishing step to fully refine. D300 can also be mixed with M105 in order to get more correction from D300 and also cut down on the dusting from M105. For more information about mixing the two, creating what I like to call “WGCI” :), you can refer to my article listing A Few Pad and Polish Combinations I Use Regularly. D300 is also something I use mainly with the orange Lake Country cutting pad, as well as the DA Microfiber Cutting Pads. The main purpose of D300 in my business is to be used on softer paint jobs where M105 might be a bit too aggressive and require 2 finishing steps, whereas D300 only requires one.

Yet another Meguiar’s product that does great work and is used on a regular basis. For the description of Meguiar’s Ultra Finishing Polish M205 I’ll simply copy what I wrote about it in my article Ivan Rajic’s 10 Favorite Detailing Products. M205 stands apart from it’s competition in many, many ways. It’s easily one of the most versatile polishes out there, having the ability to correct fairly severe defects when paired with an aggressive pad and also finish down great with a finishing pad, such as a Lake Country Black or Crimson Finishing Pad. It can even finish down without marring on most of those nightmare, jet black paints when used with the right pads and techniques. This makes it perfect for those one-step polish details where the goal is to get as much correction as possible without leaving any additional marring in the paint. Finally, when used in tandem with it’s aggressive counterpart, Meguiar’s Ultra-Cut Compound 105, it’s a part of the most advanced two step system the detailing world has seen in a long time, providing great correction and a fine finish in only two steps.

I started using this polish before the name change, so I will still refer to it as PO85RD. That said, PO85RD is the finest polish of the bunch and allows for refining of those hard-to-deal-with paints after a compounding stage. It is very easy to use and a little bit goes a long way. In my article “How much product do you put on the pad? Do you prime it?“, I show 3 small dots of PO85RD on the pad, but it will vary quite a bit depending on what machine is being used and how large of an area is being polished. For beginners, I would suggest using the 3 small dots only on the first section, then only 2 dots so as not to have too much product for the section being polished. The only negative of PO85RD, if you can call it that, is that due to its oily nature it may be difficult to remove after polishing a section, especially if too much is used.

The Lake Country Orange Light Cutting Pad is my go-to pad when doing 2-stage correction detailing because it can remove defects very well while still leaving a great finish. As stated above, I typically use this pad with M105, D300 or “WGCI” and always get great results, usually only requiring 1 stage of finish polishing after the compounding. I believe this is a must have pad because it’s much finer than the Lake Country yellow cutting pads and a bit finer than DA Microfiber Cutting Pads, but can still do some serious correction on any type of paint. In short, it’s a great correction pad that normally leaves a very fine finish.

Last, but not least (actually my favorite :)), is the Lake Country Hydro Tech Crimson Ultra Fine Finishing Pad. This pad is my favorite pad because it is one of the best finishing pads I have worked with over the years and it never disappoints. I like it a bit more than the Lake Country Black finishing pad because it’s a bit firmer, which makes it quite a bit easier for me to work with during the polishing process. When paired with PO85RD it finishes down perfectly on pretty much any paint out there. I also like to use it quite a bit with the SONAX Nano Technology Paint Cleaner during light machine polish detailing.

Well that’s about it. With these six products, I believe anyone out there can accomplish great results without having to buy other products in order to fill a certain role. If I wasn’t focusing on pure polishes and paint correction in this article, I would surely add in the SONAX Nano Technology Paint Cleaner (NTPC) as a must have product. NTPC takes care of finish polishing on any of the harder to deal with paint jobs and it’s a great all-in-one polish that cleans well and protects.

I’m hoping this helps out everyone and anyone, mainly the beginners looking to dive into paint correction but are undecided on which products can do what and which should be purchased. I encourage everyone to leave any questions or comments below and, as always, thanks for reading!

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Well ladies and gentlemen I was lucky enough to get the honor at a new Lambo a 2011 Performante (LP 570-4) Spyder. This is only 1 of 3 white ones in the USA and while I’m not a white color fan, this really got to me after the many hours I worked on her. In my opinion the Lambos are really hitting their stride right now, amazing engine sounds, great drivers, and styling looks are really giving the long held Ferrari’s a run for the money.

This car from a distance is a stunner, even up close you have to have a discerning eye for the details that needed to be addressed. My client is such an owner, while 95% of the public would just goo and aaawww over it, he could see its full potential was yet to come. When white cars are perfected they are become really glossy and blinding in full sun……..pure brilliance. I have tried to capture the paint defects, white is a difficult color to video or photograph the defects. You will be looking for haze, sanding marks, a few pigtails and just general not up to standard for such a super-car.

The paint on these newer lambos is rock hard, they don’t release defects very easily…….so you will see purple foam wool used to correct the finish. For the compounding stages I used Megs 300 and 105, together…..yes I was mixing to get what I wanted out of both polishes. I like the 300 because of the next to no dusting, yet the cut of 105 is a bit more, so when I mix the ratio of the two that worked the best in my test areas I was ready to go! What is amazing is that you can almost call it a day and throw on some LSP and be done after this combo, however if you just refine the finish with a burnishing polish such as 106fa, menzerna 203 or megs 205 you can amp up the gloss. While many of these polishes are not true burnishing polishes on this rock hard paint they act like it. The owner and I talked over what LSP to use, and the advantages of each choice, we settled on Blackfire wet diamond, now many know its a great LSP for black and dark colors but lately, glossed out white cars really love this stuff.

The real challenge with this car were the engine vents, super small, easy to burn edges, and this are had most of the major damage. I guess mario at the Lambo factory knew this area would be a pain and just left it for Reflections Detailing of Utah to take out………I need to send mario a thank you card. This car also has a lot of small areas that are super hard to get into with large pads, so using the small 3″ pads really helped. While it seems to take forever to correct these areas, it was far more effective and easier than trying to compound by hand! Now remember this is a unmolested car, the dealer didn’t even wash it when it came in per the owners request, so ALL these defects are factory installed options. If I recall the total time to work this paint was close to 14 hours, a lions share on one day. While I could have finished in one day, when you start to get tunnel vision and you’re tired you need to know to stop, this is when trouble starts and you can make careless mistakes……get some rest and start fresh.

You can see the haze and un-clear reflections in the paint. You want clear sharp images in the paint.

Yet another reflection lacking clarity. In order to obtain maximum gloss, you have to have absolute clarity.

You want to work towards images like below, these will yet be refined to a higher clarity, but much improved over the above.

A video (below) of corrected areas and untouched, while you don’t think its much when you multiply that times the amount of surface area…..that is how a car gets it gloss on.

The following photos are of the rear engine deck lid. This was a slow process, protecting all the decal work, the thin edges……..this area took about 4 hours to work over……..its also the area with the most defects in the paint!

You will also notice I keep using various towels to protect the car, this simple detail can save you if the polisher gets away from you…….protect at all cost.

Time to pull it out in full sun and get on the sunglasses, its going to be brilliant.

Yes the stance is not right, we had to raise it so it didn’t scrape going into the garage, and we where so blinded by the glowing white forgot to lower it for the photos!

I have been working with a local professional photographer Tyson Bybee here in Utah to help capture the workmanship of reflections detailing of utah. As you can see, he truly captures and shows far better than I can, the true appearance of the cars!

I look like a bum wiping down this car, I spent so much time polishing the lower sections of the car I got filthy on the floor (almost sounds wrong like a dance move in a club?).

While I looks like I was polishing with my eyes closed, rest assured they are wide open……..Just checking the amount of correction with my cree bulb flashlight.

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Many moons ago I was contacted by the owner of this car, and while on the phone I got a pretty good sense that this car had a bunch of issues going on. I asked the owner to send some photos, and carefully looking them over I could see some issues. We spoke at lenght about his goals for the car, and how to best meet them. In these goals were a budget he needed to stay within, which was possible but until I saw the car I couldn’t say for sure.

Now if you are familiar with detailing, there are certain OEM paints that are a PITA to work with; BMW jet black, Bentley black, Porsche black and Honda/Acuras Nighthawk black pearl. When heavy correction is needed on these paints they like to fight you, and they don’t like to finish down all that well. You always have to do a 3rd or 4th polishing step to make them perfect, whereas others you can reduce that by 1 or 2 steps. So having a budget which sets the time frame you have to work with on these paints presents an added dimension to the whole job, and you have to think though what is it going to take to meet that goal. The budget didn’t allow for many steps, hence the challenge.

When the car arrived it was in rough shape, the photos didn’t fully show the true issues in the paint. The owner was keen enough to see them, and aware that he might have to settle for less of his goal……and I had my head spinning as to how to best attack this. He left it with me for a few days which really helped, because I needed to do a few test areas to deal with this challenge of correcting a super finicky paint in as few of hours as possible. I took some paint thickness readings to see, and to my concern the readings showed repaint work, super thin areas, and areas with huge thickness ranges on the same panel.

I felt confident I could give him a great outcome even with his tight budget. I’m pretty sure I did a bit extra just to be on the safe side of the outcome.

Many will ask why so many products. Well each panel was so different as to the amount of marring, yet I wanted a consistent finish and I was on a budget so If I could get the results I wanted by using black foam and menzerna 203 then another panel needed megs 300 and finishing pad, I did it. I know it sounds confusing but it worked and saved time. Also repainted areas react differently than OEM paint. I had to wet sand a few areas since wet sanding can be a more consistent removal method…not a lot of spots but a few.

I have learned to read how the paint in reacting to what I’m doing, so I can quickly modify my approach by simply changing out pads, or liquids……….. This is why professionals are worth the effort to seek out. The local car wash only teaches their staff one system and all cars get that system, yet the outcomes are hugely different for each car.

Here is a collection of what I found………..

When someone did a repaint, you are suppose to take your repaint to a hard edge not leave it in the middle of the pillar! You can see the line.

Here are some thickness samples from the car, all over the map. I had to check each panel in several spots to double check as each panel could have more than one thickness!!!

ARE we getting to a point we can correct? I need a photo or two that are cheery after the sea of swirls! This will calm your nerves I hope.

So did the owner meet his goals? I sure hope so.

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Recently, I was contacted by a local Automotive Service company called Black Horse Garage located in Bridgeport, CT. The company itself offers services for classic, exotic and collector cars, and also has an inventory of cars for sale as well. They recently lost the person who was taking care of their paint correction and detailing. Luckily the owner of the company has been in the business long enough to know that just looking for another detailer with “Help Wanted” ads really isn’t the way to go, especially when dealing with antique cars valued in the six figure range. We had spoken back and forth a couple of times since we are both active members in the Ferrari of America New England Chapter, so I got the call to come in and take over the detailing department.

Over the past month or so I have had the privilege of working on a number of truly classic cars, but my favorites have been the two Packards that I worked on. One is a Red 1934 Packard 8 and the other is a 1935 Packard 12 which holds a very special meaning for me which I will go into later.

After trying a few other test spots and finding the results to be almost the same, I knew I was in for a challenge. This was going to be one of those cars that gave me absolutely nothing. I dialed up the speed to 4, applied more pressure and slowed my passes way down. Finally I started to see results.

After some wetsanding to go along with the compouding, various polishing pads and products, a coat of Chemical Guys EZ Creme Glaze, a coat of wax and close to 20 hours of work, the red paint looked ready to dive into.

Please Note: My photography skills do not match my detailing skills yet and do not this car justice.

Next was a 1935 Packard 12. This car has a very special meaning to me because of who it belonged to at one point. The car itself once belonged to Cesar Romero. For those of you who do not know who he was, he was the actor who portrayed “The Joker” on the “Batman” television series from the 1960’s. Now, since I named my company “Gotham Auto Works” it should be no big secret that I am a Batman fan, and the chance to work on a car owned by Cesar Romero was absolutely amazing and will forever remain in the top cars of my career.

Ferrari’s models are all over the top: beautiful yet menacing designs, unnecessary power coupled with sticky tires and superb brakes with a racing heritage that gives way to instantly track-ready automobiles. More and more often, Ferrari owners are realizing the same thing many exotic and super-car owners are finding out: while they might own a dream car, the condition of many of these cars from the factory is less than perfect. This is the story of one such vehicle’s revival to the realm of perfection in Michigan through AutoLavish.

This 2009 Ferrari 430 Scuderia wearing Rosso Corsa PPG paint just might be one of the most beautiful modern exotics, but she came to her owner in less than stellar condition:

Evidence of DA sanding gone wrong…

Buffer trails…

Swirls…

Scuffs…

Random Isolated Deep Scratches…

Wax / polish residue…

…And even a section plagued of orange peel that appears to have been looked over and forgotten by the post-paint workers at the factory in Italy:

All of this on a car with a very uneven paint job as noted by some of our thickness measurements:

Luckily the owner made the wise choice of choosing AutoLavish to properly fix these issues. We began the project in the same way we always do: a thorough detox and cleaning of the exterior.
The lightweight wheels needed to be carefully cared for: no cleaners are to be used on carbon ceramic brakes as they can absorb chemicals and be damaged. No owner should spend the $5k+ per rotor to fix a detailer’s mistake, and it is just another reason that spending good money on a quality detailer can save you money.

While the carbon brakes are known for their tremendous stopping power as well as how clean they are (no dusting!), we wanted to make sure the wheels would have any dirt, residue, or grime removed properly. We therefore applied P21S Wheel Cleaner Gel to a soft brush:

Then used the brush carefully on areas like around the lugs and on the wheel faces:

As well as the large brake calipers:

For the inside of the wheels, P21S Wheel Cleaner Gel was applied to the bottom side of our EZ Detail Brush:

And then used on the inside of the wheels as to avoid having the cleaner applied to the rotor:

Once finished, the wheel was thoroughly flushed with water from our pressure washer.

As I continued to work on the wheels, Jacob turned his attention to the engine bay which was only lightly dirty. Cleaning was completed using P21S Total Auto Wash with a boar’s hair brush on larger surfaces and a separate EZ Detail Brush to get between hard to reach areas and further down where hands don’t easily fit.

P21S Total Auto Wash was also used to clean up the old residue around the door handles, mirrors, inside door jams, and other areas that needed some pre-washing treatment.

Following the pre-wash cleaning, the Ferrari was foamed down with Chemical Guy’s Citrus Wash to loosen grime prior to being touched.

The soapy solution was allowed to dwell for several minutes to all exterior surfaces. While it helps to loosen up dirt and grime, it also helps to remove old wax or sealant residue leaving a sterile surface to polish.

After being rinsed, the vehicle was re-foamed in order to be properly washed. As always; work from the top of the vehicle down!

With washing out of the way, we again foamed the vehicle (yes, that’s a lot of foaming) to use the suds as a clay lubricant. Claying was done with a clay that’s not yet available in the US that we had shipped from the United Kingdom (we’re always testing new products and importing things not yet available to North America), but any mild clay can be used on a vehicle that is not heavily contaminated like this 430 Scud.

After being rinsed, we sought to bring additional clarity to the carbon fiber trimmings while better cleaning some metal pieces in the engine bay by using Klasse All In One on a Terry Cloth Applicator. Other areas that appeared to be in better shape (many of the interior components) would receive Klasse All In One on a standard foam applicator pad.

On the cross member support below the rear window:

On the electronic throttle body housing (notice the left side looking perfect and the yet-to-be-treated right side showing some oxidation):

Apply Klasse All In One on the engine’s driver side plenum (which distributes air into each runner):

The following picture shows the nice subtle difference that “KAIO” was able to make; notice the near side plenum’s carbine fiber weave shows much better than the far side plenum.

Afterwards, the engine bay looked outstanding as evident when looking at the airboxes:

Carbon fiber is everywhere on a 430 Scuderia as the lightweight material is used throughout the interior in order to take ounces off the vehicle’s final weight. All these surfaces would be carefully cared for and renewed with Klasse All In One as well despite the Ferrari having less than 1,000 total miles traveled.

Carbon fiber door sills and carbon fiber door panels:

The carbon fiber center console:

The carbon fiber trim on the steering wheel:

Even the rear window would be coated to help it stay clean longer while making future cleaning easier when it does need attention:

Finished with the interior carbon fiber treatment, the seat backs seemed to glow in their newly found clarity:

Clean and decontaminated, potentially sensitive areas would be taped off, masked off, and marked, to include covering the wheels from contamination from polishing:

Some of the heavy artillery we brought to assist in the heavy polishing stages (we love our Surbuf pads!):

Properly prepped for paint correction, Jacob and I began transforming the less-than-perfect clear-coat into automotive perfection through hours of careful polishing. Major body panels, the rear carbon fiber grill, lower side panels, and all those small hard to reach areas would all be massaged to perfection.

Hazed areas had clarity and gloss properly releveled (50/50):

The sanding marks on the passanger side rear fender? Those would be carefully and precisely removed (50/50):

Swirls on the A-pillars?

Permanently removed (50/50):

The PPG paint under a Brinkmann Dual LED light after the initial correction stage (more clarity would come from the next two steps):

A major problem area of the vehicle was a rear-facing section of paint between the tail-lights on the passenger side of the vehicle. It seems some forgetful workers in Italy forgot to attend to the area after it was painted. The area had an unusually high amount of orange peel and was extremely hazy.
Under the Brinkmann Dual Xenon, you can see the unusual amount of texture in the paint:

Sanding the area allowed us to “shave” away the extra texture:

Unfortunately, the sanding block couldn’t appropriately get near the edges of this section. The following photo shows the lack of sanding at the edges:

To combat this small imperfection, the paint closer to the edges would need to be done by hand: something that requires extreme patience, time, a steady hand, and an artist’s touch. Luckily Jacob and I are a pair of lefties that like to channel the spirit of fellow lefty Michelangelo in the work we do:

Finally leveled, there was a much more uniform haze to the small section that could now be properly polished.

The two-man advantage: on small delicate areas like this, one man can work while the other monitors the temperature to insure the complete safety of the vehicle being worked on:

Finished, the area now matched the rest of the beautiful vehicle’s finish. Before we show you the result, let us remind you of what the area looked like before:

And now after (prior to further refining):

Nearly complete, Jacob inspects the roof after he refined the area with Menzerna 106fa and then moved on to refining the passenger door:

With polishing complete, there’s plenty of dust from polishing residue and clear-coat residue covering the car. In order to gently remove the particles along with any oils from the polishing process, we gave the Ferrari 430 Scud one final gentle wash.

Oils and residue (rainbow colored) from polishes coming off:

One last reason for our final wash process: proof that we aren’t hiding anything. Polishing oils and residue often increase surface tension on the paint which gives water a strong beading effect. By stripping the oils from polishing, we can prove that what you see is what you get; there’s nothing on the surface that could mask or hide defects. Surface tension drops with the paint completely bare resulting in the complete absence of water beading. This means the last step product we use is going directly onto the paint.

This is a product designed to be the absolute best wax possible for an automobile: no added color, no added fragrance, no unnecessary ingredients: simply pure and uncompromising gloss, clarity, and protection.

Supernatural would be used extensively throughout the vehicle to help protect the finish of all painted and carbon fiber pieces.

Our afters. Please keep in mind that all of our pictures are straight out of the camera and unedited aside from resized with a boarder and watermark. No funny business here: just pics straight from our Sony A200 DSLR. The hours and hours we pour into our work is the way we’re able to achieve what we like to call “photoshopped in real life results.”

Pulled back in, we gave a final gentle wipe to any area of need and tucked the beauty away for her photo shoot with Steven Pham.

Naturally the next step was to freeze the beauty of this vehicle in time. Photographer Steven Pham was brought in to work his magic. While we consider ourselves average at best, we’ve found photography to be much like detailing: if you want the best results: you have to bring in the best professionals.

Here are three high resolution desktop background wallpapers prepaired for our Ask-A-Pro audience. Simply click on one of the links to pull up the picture, then right-click on the image and choose “save as,” then use your computer’s setting to set the picture as your background!

We appreciate you taking a look and we hope you enjoyed the journey as much as we enjoyed helping to create it!
-Marc Harris & Jacob Bunyan from AutoLavish of Michigan with guest photographer Steven Pham.

This Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder recently arrived in the Esoteric Auto Detail studios within the halls of NJB Automotive here in Columbus, Ohio with a typical case of factory-installed holograms and buffer trails. As other detailers and I have thoroughly documented in the past, this is a common affliction with exotics and other hand-built vehicles as they come from the factory.

If you’re a detailer or a detailing enthusiast reading this article, you know exactly what buffer trails and holograms are, and how much of a negative impact they can have on the looks of the painted finish. But if you’ve simply stumbled upon this article, and know nothing about detailing and paint correction, let me take a moment to show you what I am referring to and what causes the problems in the paint.

Automotive paint, especially on a brand new car, should have pure reflections when you look at it directly in the sunshine or in a concentrated light source. There should be no defects, swirls, or any other type of haze that prevents crystal clear reflections and a deep gloss. Upon inspection, the finish should look like the following images:

In the sunshine reflection, you should see crystal clear paint, and a pure image of the sun.

If you were to look at it under concentrated lighting as with this Brinkmann LED inspection light, you should once again see no scratches, swirls, or haze…just a clear light reflection.

But…the unfortunate and sad reality here is that very few exotics and hand-built cars come from the factory looking as they should (as they do in the photos above). I guess you can say that $200K+ doesn’t buy you what it used to! Whether you’re purchasing a Lamborghini, Ferrari, Rolls Royce, Aston Martin, Maserati, or just about any other highline vehicle, chances are good that the paint finish won’t be at the level that it deserves and you should seriously consider having a paint correction specialist refine it to the proper level.

What are holograms, and what causes them?

Holograms are also referred to as buffer trails, and are caused by the improper use of a high-speed rotary buffer. They’re easy to spot, especially on darker colored vehicles when you look at the car in the sunshine. As you look directly into the sun reflection, and move your viewing position from side to side, the light reflection will bend and move (hence the term hologram). It almost has an aurora borealis type effect to it. Once you look at my video at the end of this article, you will see exactly what I am referring to (don’t you dare fast forward to the video…there’s plenty of great info and you need to build up to it before you’re ready!).

What you’re seeing are rotary swirls caused by the improper use of the buffer, and these micro-scratches reflect the light in all different directions causing that hologram effect. These are typically seen on brand new exotics coming from the factory, or vehicles that have come from the body shop, or ones that have had a “cheap detail” (also known as speed-detailing!). As I have stated, this is caused by the buffer operator simply not understanding the science behind the art of paint polishing, or the fact that they don’t have or want to take the time to do the job right. On most of what we see in holograms, it comes from the use of a very aggressive wool pad that is designed for heavy cutting in a short period of time. IF a wool pad on a rotary buffer is to be used, it needs to be followed by two or three more refinement steps to bring the finish to pure, crystal clear reflections. The reason why the factories (or body shops) would be buffing the paint in such an aggressive manner would be because they sanded the paint to remove orange peel and texture. That is fine, however rarely do I find that (a) they even got rid of all of the sanding marks, and (b) they failed to properly finish and refine their buffing / polishing process afterwards. This isn’t just MY opinion…this is fact. Buffing can start with wool, but it cannot end with it!

So now I am going to introduce a new industry standard term for this affliction. Holograms created by wool pads will now be referred to as Woolograms!

You have the background on woolograms, what and who causes them, and why they’re bad for the paint finish…so let’s take a closer look at this Lamborghini in particular to show you what it looked like.

Here on the back end of the Gallardo, you can clearly see just how bad the woolograms were, and how much of a negative impact they have on the light reflections. Compare this to the photo(s) above!

And while this photo isn’t as revealing as the ones above, you can still see the woologram-effect in the light reflection, and you can tell that there’s a very distinct haze in the paint’s finish.

Upon initial inspection of this Gallardo, I could clearly see that it had been viciously attacked at the factory by the wool pad and rotary buffer. It didn’t matter how tight of an area it was…they hit it hard and fast. I knew that there would be some of the wool marks that would be too deep to safely correct (paint preservation is key), but if I could at least get 95% of all of the defects safely removed, then this car would look absolutely stunning. As part of the assessment and game planning process, I asked my (regular) client if this car had ever been detailed or at a body shop. The answer was no…he was the original owner and the car hadn’t been touched. I’ve worked on other cars in his collection, but this was the first time I got the opportunity to work with this car in particular.

So armed with the knowledge that these were factory-induced woolograms, I gave him some options as I typically do…Good, Better, and Best. Since this car is leaving our facility and being shipped out to Arizona to attend the Giro Lamborghini 2011 drive, he wanted it to look its absolute best. The decision was made, and we decided on a Restorative Detail – the best.

On a Restorative Detail, the plan is to work on all areas of the vehicle, and restore them to as new condition as possible, and in some cases…better than new. On many occasions I will perform Restorative Details even on brand new, zero mile cars that are shipped in from all across the country. The owners have been educated to the fact that these highline vehicles come from the factory with a less than stellar paint finish, and commission my services to bring the brand new car to the level that it deserves. So if you own one of these exotics, and when you look at it in the sunshine it shows the types of defects I showcase in the photos above…don’t sweat it…just give me a call!

Restorative Detail – the process:

Once the level of detailing to be performed is established, it’s time to develop a plan of attack that will help us achieve the goals that I have established with the client, and with an efficient workflow to keep the process running smoothly.

I knew that we had a high level of decontamination to perform on the paint prior to any polishing, we had wheels-off full suspension and brake component detailing to do, and some issues to take care of on the interior of the vehicle.

So to start, we put the Gallardo on the scissor lift and removed the wheels so we could proceed with the wheels, suspension, and brakes. For part of the detail I had a detailer / friend of mine helping me with the process, and here is Addison removing the wheels.

As expected, even at only 3500 miles on the odometer everything behind the wheels was in need of a thorough cleaning. You can also see just how much debris was built up on the lower rocker panels.

I started off by using a custom setup that is great for heavy cleaning of wheel wells, suspension, and even dirty engines. It uses compressed air and pulls a liquid cleaning solution from the bucket…kind of a hybrid of a pressure washer and a steam cleaner.

So I started out with this before:

And ended up with this afterwards:

And while I was working on the brakes and suspension, Addison was working on cleaning the wheels. Here you can see Sonax Full Effect Wheel Cleaner in action as it dissolves any iron deposits that are embedded into the rims.

Once the wheels were deep cleaned and decontaminated, I used Optimum Opti-Coat to provide a very durable protective coating that will help to keep the wheels cleaner for longer. It also makes future cleaning much easier as the protective barrier prevents contaminants from sticking to the surface.

The brake calipers were thoroughly cleaned with P21S Wheel Gel, and then hand-polished with Sonax Paint Cleaner. Sometimes it’s safe to polish brake calipers by machine, however I didn’t feel that this would be the case with these. There were a lot of raised areas, and I could actually see where the powder coating / painting was thin. The last thing I wanted to do was to use an aggressive mechanical action by machine and thin the surface any further.

Clean, polished, and protected…

Paint Correction and Paint Polishing Process:

Now that we’ve finished up the wheels, brakes, and suspension, it was time to move on to the most important, and most time consuming process – paint correction.

Proper paint correction isn’t something that just anyone can do. And a matter of fact, it’s something that a very small percentage of people working with buffing paint even truly understand. Most factories, body shops, and even the majority of people working in the detailing industry aren’t aware of the level that can be achieved with paint refinement. It’s part science, part artistry, and part obsessive-compulsive behavior! No two jobs are the same, and each vehicle has its own unique set of needs. Because of this, it’s imperative that each situation is fully evaluated and the final process cannot be established without first testing different products, tools, and techniques to figure out what’s going to be the best solution for that particular car on that particular day.

While we highline detailers have some products and techniques that we use as our “go-to” combinations, and we get to know how each model’s paint will typically react, we never stop with our quest to learn and develop our skills, techniques, and processes. It is through this type of relentless pursuit of knowledge and perfection that puts us in a position to be at the top of our games.

I knew that this paint was quite needy, and that Lamborghini is known for having some of the hardest paint in the business (the harder the paint, the more aggressive you typically need to go to get a high level of correction). Had I just rested on my product and paint knowledge, I would have immediately grabbed for the most aggressive products, tools, and techniques to tackle this job. But once again since paint preservation is always key, I wanted to use the least aggressive method possible to achieve the desired results. There’s no need to reach for the sledgehammer when the ball-peen will work just fine! With the severity of these defects, there are some that would have immediately reached for sand paper for the fastest defect removal (especially old-school body shop types). Then after sanding it would have required more heavy wool compounding, followed by a mid-level polishing, and finally a fine level polishing. Each of these steps removes a small amount of clearcoat, and you want to remove as little as possible. These exotics will be around much longer than daily drivers, so you want the detail / paint correction to withstand the test of time. When I’m done with these cars I know that they’re still going to look good many years to come, and have plenty of clearcoat remaining for future polishing. The ultra-aggressive methods on OEM paint may look good now, but at what expense in the future. Remember…paint preservation is key, so use the least aggressive method to get the job done, even if it means taking a little more time for the job.

So the long-winded approach to the point I was trying to make here is that I wanted to experiment a little on this car to see just how light I could go to achieve the same results. I’ve been a big fan of the Meguiar’s Microfiber Cutting Discs and D300 compound ever since I was part of the pre-production development team, but I know that it’s usually not my go-to product for defects this heavy on paint this hard. About a week before this detail, the DI Blog Authors were having some discussion on using even slower speeds with the Porter Cable D/A polisher to achieve a high level of paint correction. I saw this as a challenge, and actually did a test on a Maserati that I worked on a few days before. I slowed the machine speed all the way down to just 3 ~ 3.5, and achieved full correction with an ultra-fine finish. So since it worked on the Maserati, I figured I would give it a try on the ultra-hard Lamborghini.

By using a high level of pressure at speed 3.5 with very slow arm speed (see in the video at the end of the article. Wait for it….), and then tapering off the pressure at the end, I was able to get all but the absolute deepest defects out of the Lamborghini paint and leave it with an amazing finish. The finish was so good in fact that when I did my finish-polishing at the end, it was barely noticeable where I had done my final polishing, and where I had done just compounding. And for me, I like to practice and teach to get most of your work done in the compounding stage leaving just easy and fine polishing at the end. I only want to chase defects while compounding…not during multiple finishing stages.

If you really want a detail to stand out, it has to be a complete-vehicle procedure. Sure the hood has to look good, but when you really get up close you want to check out all of those hard to polish areas…around marker lights, the bumpers, a-pillars, and lower rocker panels. When I’m doing a Restorative Detail, I make sure that all of these areas get as refined as the “show areas” like the hood or trunk lid. Here I am compounding the rocker panels for a high level of paint correction.

And while these photos don’t have as much “wow-factor”, they are a great representation of the tight areas that need to be corrected to make it a true Restorative Detail. When dealing with new exotics are cars that have recently had work at the body shop, you’ll typically find these exact problems in areas like this. They sand the finish down, but can’t get the sanding marks out near the hard-to-access areas. Sanding and heavy buffing near edges like this is dangerous as the paint is typically much thinner than other areas of the car. While the defects would be very hard to see…I know they’re there. When it leaves my possession, I need to know that I made every attempt to safely remove these types of defects…whether or not the owner or anybody else could ever see them.

Before:

After. This is why it’s called “detail”ing:

Here’s another example at the back-end of the vehicle. Once again it’s very small, and quite challenging to get right, but…

After:

And as you can see under this light, they sanded the area but couldn’t get it further refined because it’s in such a precarious area (I guess they shouldn’t sand where they can’t buff!).

But after patient refinement, the defects and damage are properly removed.

Exotics like this Gallardo also present other polishing challenges. As you can see from this photo, the recessed and angled area can’t be reached fully by machine.

But fortunately in this case, I was able to slightly raise the hood to give me access to that last inch of paint!

Now if you look at the black strip of plastic that goes all the way across the back of the vehicle (just behind the seats), you will see the exact area I am dealing with in the photos below. This high-gloss trim gets swirled up just like paint, and can be further refined as well. In order to polish these, I actually had to stand inside the car to get to them.

Please excuse the out-of-focus shots here…I was standing inside the car holding a light in one hand, and the camera in the other. Here you can see just how swirled up these pieces were.

And after refinement:

One of the most challenging areas on the car were the vents / louvers in the back. These were hit heavily with a wool pad on the rotary, and caused a lot of very heavy defects. I knew going into it that this would be an area that wouldn’t fully correct, and that the goal would be to get it looking as good as possible. You can’t get a polishing pad completely into the corners, and since they are so flexible you can’t apply as much pressure as you really need. So in this case you work it as carefully as possible, and get as much correction as is safe. I’m sure that I mumbled a few expletives aimed at the buffer operator that caused this damage while I was working on these…very slow and tedious process.

Now for the finish-polishing stage, I tried a few different methods. On the hood of the car (as seen in the video), I was testing a polish from Sonax that isn’t currently available in the U.S. It is designed for rotary, but works quite well with a D/A too. I was quite pleased with the results, but since the wheels were still off of the car and I couldn’t pull it out into the sunshine to inspect, I didn’t want to risk any issues with an unknown polish. The last thing you want is to spend 5 hours polishing, only to pull it outside when you’re done and find out you need to go back and fix it all! When I was finally finished with the car I found out that it finished down perfectly, but I didn’t want to risk that.

So for the rest of the car, I used the trusted Meguiar’s M205 on a black pad with the Porter Cable. I used it on just speed 3 with medium pressure and slow passes. Since I did all of my correction work in the compounding stage, and achieved such a high gloss finish, there was actually little work to do on the finishing stage. I made quick work during this finishing process, and then it was time to move on to final processes.

Finishing Processes:

After the polishing is complete during a large detail, there are still hours worth of work before the job is truly finished. These finishing touches can make or break the detail…

Not only were the door jambs completely cleaned using Optimum No Rinse, but they were hand polished (and protected) using Sonax Paint Cleaner. This is an all-in-one products that cleans, polishes, and protects the finish by leaving a nice wax finish behind.

The underneath side of the hood was cleaned and polished using the same process as the door jambs…attention to details!

Just because it’s normally hidden from view, it doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be nice and glossy as well.

Here’s another time-consuming task…removing caked on compound that’s been there for years! This was how the factory delivered the car, and it required using polish by hand to fully remove it.

After…much better.

The engine compartment got cleaned up using Optimum No Rinse as well.

Once everything was tidied up, it was time to finish the paint by applying a durable sealant and then a nice wax. Here I am applying Chemical Guys Blacklight to the car. This product is a gloss enhancer and durable sealant, and is very easy to use leaving a brilliant and slick finish.

And after about a 30 minute cure-time, I applied a coat of Chemical Guys Ezyme Natura wax. For those who have been following my work, you know that this is my go-to high-end wax for when a carnauba application is in store.

And the two teamed up together creates an amazing look.

Interior Detailing and leather repair:

For the interior of the car, my first concern was to get the yellow and red leather fully cleaned and protected from the elements. A full Leatherique application was in order to deep clean and condition the leather, and to provide a layer of UV protection on this convertible car that gets exposed to harsh elements.

Seats before:

After Leatherique application:

And the rest of the interior was cleaned and detailed using Sonax Dashboard Cleaner. It’s a great all-surface interior cleaner and protectant, and is very easy to use.

Another major issue that we had to take care of was this tear in the leather…it really detracted from the fine interior.

We provide leather restoration and repair services, and my guy Phillip here is working his magic to restore it to like-new condition.

Now we have this Lamborghini finished, and it was a long process (both the work, and the writing of this article…thanks for sticking around and reading it through to the end). The car turned out absolutely fantastic, and now had the finish that it truly deserved. I would estimate that at least 95% of all the defects were safely removed, but any that remained would be extremely difficult to detect to the untrained eye or without the proper light source.

Are you ready for some final photos?

Remember, here’s what the finish looked like before:

Passenger door.

After.

Back end before.

And after!

And with all of the woolograms, scratches, and haze permanently removed from the finish, the true color, gloss, and reflectivity finally had the chance to show off!

I saw this image in the viewfinder and knew it would be a stellar shot…

The tail lights were also compounded, polished, sealed, and waxed.

How about the clarity in these reflections? The yellow Lamborghini Diablo belongs to the same owner as this Gallardo.

Now let’s pull the car out into the sunshine (rare here in Ohio during the spring!) and see how it looks…

Pretty insane gloss…

No more woolograms or swirls here.

Those are cloud reflections you see in the sunshine…not woolograms!

Alright, so you’ve read through the entire article while fighting the temptation to scroll down to the bottom and view the video I’ve mentioned several times…I thank you for that! Hopefully you’ve enjoyed watching the transformation that this Lamborghini went through as much as I did creating it. We highline detailers are artists, and art is supposed to be shared and enjoyed by all.

Be sure to select at least 720p on playback for the best image quality.

Please feel free to share this article with others, and don’t hesitate to post a note or question in the comment box below.

No matter where you park or how careful you are , its bound to happen…

I use this car to drive to the train station during the week. I park it in the most isolated space I can find every day, yet someone was courteous enough to commit a “hit-and-run” on me.

The damage below is a simple paint transfer and small breakthrough on a urethane bumper. Being a three-stage paint or “tri-coat”, any repair will certainly present a challenge to the shop trying to match the color. (Three-stage = basecoat, pearl or effect coat, and clearcoat) In addition, the approximate $400 cost to repair is not worth it as this car is a lease.

To start, I used an Orange Lake Country 5.5″ flat pad, and Meguiars M105. I set the Makita speed to 2 and slowly worked the polish over the paint. The damage slowly came off, and the bumper was ready for some final polishing. I used a Porter Cable and a Green pad with some Meguairs M205 for this. Again, slowly, the light haze left behind from the M105 was removed and a near OEM finish was restored.

To address the area where the paint was broken, I used an Infiniti OEM touch up paint I purchased when I bought the car. I wasn’t going to attempt to add the pearl, the base white was more than enough for my desired end result. This is the only damage on the car, and it is much smaller than the allowed size as per the lease. I slowly let the paint flow into the break. Don’t “brush” or “wipe”, just let the paint flow from the brush into the break. As the urethane was black, it took 3 coats of basecoat to cover sufficiently.

End result met my needs. I’m sure the repair is more than adequate to pass a lease return inspection and save me the potentially large and unnecessary bill.

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While this particular article is aimed more at the professional detailer, it does apply to the weekend DIYer as well.

In traditional one-step or two-step polishing methods, you’re spending the same amount of time and going for similar correction on all parts of the vehicle. So if in a one-step process you’re getting a 50% correction rate, the finish will look the same on the hood as it does on the lower part of the door.

But when you wish to achieve a higher level of correction on the top surfaces where you see it best, but don’t have the time available (or the client doesn’t have the budget) for an intensive multi-step polish job, then the Hubrid Polishing Process may be a good option for you.

Basically what the Hybrid Process does is provides a very high level of correction on all of the surfaces that are easily seen in the direct sunlight reflection…hood, trunk, roof, mirrors, tops of bumpers, tops of doors. But at the lower levels that can’t be seen in the direct sun reflection, you’re only doing a simple one-step process to remove upwards of 50% of the defects and significantly increasing gloss.

Many people see those top surfaces as the most important, and that’s what they look at most to judge the overall look of the car. And when a client isn’t in the market for a full, restorative-level detail, but wants their car to look as good as possible for their budget, then the Hybrid Process could be a perfect fit. By comparison, you could do a very intensive one-step polish or a quick multi-step polish for the same amount of money, but chances are that those key areas (hood, trunk, etc) wouldn’t turn out as good as the Hybrid.

The ONLY time that I recommend doing this level is when it is completely explained to the customer. You can give them the option of the “full” job where you are going for the same high level of correction everywhere on the car, and you can give them the option of a lighter one-step polish. If they want a higher level of correction than what your one-step will provide, but their budget doesn’t allow for the full correction job, then offer the Hybrid and FULLY EXPLAIN that the upper surfaces will have a high degree of correction and that you will taper it off on the lower sections. And for consumers hiring a professional detailer…be sure to ask specifics when you’re discussing the job at hand.

The past couple of weeks I have performed 2 Hybrid Polishing Processes on some very nice cars. One of them was a Ferrari California, and the other a 2004 Dodge Viper. In both cases, the owners spend a lot of time driving their cars and want them to look very good without being brought to the show level that a restorative detail would provide. Since I knew that the owners of these vehicles were very proud of what they drove, I thought they would be perfect candidates for the Hybrid. I explained to them that I would get a very high level of correction on the upper surfaces (where they and others would see it), but taper it down to a much lower level at the bottom surfaces. They agreed that this would be the best option for them, and we proceeded accordingly.

Hybrid Polishing Process. 2004 Dodge Viper

This Dodge Viper has been driven a lot, and in my opinion it had never been professionally detailed. It had a fair amount of swirls, the wheels were caked with brake dust, the interior was exceptionally dirty, and the overall looks of the car was “tired”. Knowing that the owner likes to drive the car and it wasn’t a garage queen, it was the perfect candidate for the Hybrid.

The decontamination process on this particular vehicle was quite lengthy, but would make a big difference by spending the proper time and effort in this important prep stage. I first started off with a wash using the 2×4 Grit Guard method, and incorporating the Gilmour Foam Gun and Chemical Guys Citrus Wash to clean all areas (including the low areas).

The wheels and calipers were heavily caked in old brake dust and grime

So given the heavy cleaning capability, I used Sonax Full Effect Wheel Cleaner (this stuff rocks on heavily soiled wheels!). It goes on green out of the bottle, but as it reacts with the iron deposits on the wheels it turns red to show you that it’s working. This is after about a 5 minute dwell time. Yes…this is a different wheel than in the first photo.

Now that my wash and wheel cleaning was complete, I moved on to a much needed claying session to remove all of the embedded contaminants in the paint and prep it for polishing. Here I am using the DI medium-grade clay and Dodo Juice Clay Lube. Look at that…I work so fast that my arm is just a blur!

There was a heavy buildup of tar behind all of the wheels on the lower parts of the vehicle

With a liberal dose of Tarminator however, the tar starts to literally melt away!

All of the tar is removed, and all you see now are rock chips remaining.

Now that I have decontaminated the painted surfaces, I gave it one last soaking in Citrus Wash via the foam gun to make sure all debris from the heavy claying session is completely removed.

I’m two hours into the job already, but the car is already looking much better just after stripping all of the dirt and contaminants from the paint and wheels. After a quick test spot, I found that the Meguiar’s MF Cutting Disc on the Porter Cable along with Meguiar’s D300 Compound was easily giving me 95% correction, while leaving the finish almost completely mar-free. So I proceeded on with compounding on all of the upper facing surfaces (hood, trunk, tops of fenders and doors, etc).

I made quick work of the compounding stage, and the car already looked stunning in comparison even before any finish polishing took place.

Now for the finish polishing stage, my goal was to increase gloss, remove any light haze that may have been left over by the compounding stage, and do it in the shortest amount of time as possible. So I decided to use Meguiar’s new Finishing Wax (final polish and durable wax all in one) with a black finishing pad on the Porter Cable. Not only did it leave a brilliant and pure finish, but by using this method I saved time since I wouldn’t need to go back with any final cleaning, sealing, or wax application steps. And for those of you paying close attention…no, I didn’t do a wardrobe change here! I started the decon/compounding stage one afternoon, and continued on with finishing the next morning.

Now for the part that makes this a Hybrid, I am doing the same finish polishing process on the lower surfaces. These areas did not get compounded. You don’t need to use the exact same process here as you do your finishing on the top surfaces, but it just worked out this way. I used a different method on the Ferrari California below and talk about it there.

The difference in color, depth, and clarity of the car was amazing, even given the relatively short amount of time that was spent on it. And unless you looked at the lower parts of the car with a Brinkmann Light, you would never know that they were polished in a lighter manner than the top.

Very impressive gloss and depth of reflections!

On a side note…the seats you see on the work bench are undergoing a leather preservation process with Leatherique. They are out of a classic 1975 Ferrari 365 Boxer.

So in a mere 8 hours, I was able to do a major detail including interior and engine compartment, and get a very high level of correction on the main viewable surfaces of the car. This Viper now looked new again, and it was done without the owner having to make a huge investment. In this case, the Hybrid Polishing Process was the perfect fit!

Ferrari California

I won’t go into full detail about this car, but it has the same basic story as the Viper. The 16 month-old Ferrari is driven hard, and already has 20K miles on it. The owner wanted it to look great, but didn’t see the need for the restorative level detail given the amount of driving time it sees. The Hybrid was chosen, and in a short 12.5 hours we got this car looking better than new. As with most Ferraris, it was covered with swirls, holograms, and sanding marks from the factory so I had to take a little more aggressive approach than I did with the Viper.

The top surfaces were hit with a Porter Cable / Surbuf Pads / Meguiar’s M105 for the compounding stage, and then the finish polishing was done with my Makita rotary, Menzerna 106FA polish, and a black finishing pad. This is an incredible one-two combination, and combines heavy correction capability with an ultra fine and pure finishing process.

But for the lower areas, I chose to go with Meguiar’s M205 on the Porter Cable and a black finishing pad. While I may have given up a slight amount of cut and purity in the finish compared to what I could have gotten had I chosen to go with the same rotary/106FA/black as I did on the top surfaces, the difference was still quite minimal and I saved a ton of time in the process.

Once I was done polishing, I used Chemical Guys EZ Creme Glaze with a blue pad on the Porter Cable, and then topped it with a fresh coat of Chemical Guys Ezyme wax. The owner of the car had a brand new jar of Ezyme in his detailing cabinet, and he enjoys waxing the vehicle. Otherwise I would have went with a durable sealant since the car gets driven and washed a lot.

Before:

After:

And what it looked like in the sunshine:

And finally…

While I was out taking photos of the finished car, the owner came home from work and from his rolled down windows I could hear him laughing…he couldn’t believe how incredibly good his car looked without having to make a substantial investment. While the photos look good, it doesn’t do justice to what it actually looked like in person. And after we stood and admired the car for a while, the owner threw me the keys and said “let’s go for a drive”. Full-throttle F1 shifts in a car like this definitely adds a touch of glamour to the job.

So when you have some heavy correction to do on either your personal car or one of your clients’ vehicles, and a full-on restorative detail is not on the menu, consider the Hybrid Polishing Process to maximize the transformation while minimizing the time and / or investment.

Sometimes it’s a good idea to promise less and give more. The owner of this 2002 Audi S8 wanted the car cleaned up a little bit. He was not looking for anything special, and specifically stated that he was not looking for all the scratches to be removed. (Or any of them for that matter) The Audi had spent most of it’s life outside and was pretty scratched up as you can see from the pictures. (When I say it spent it’s life outside, I mean there were actual plants GROWING with roots and everything in the dirt in the trunk jam.) The customer explained just wanted it cleaned up a bit and a good coat of wax applied.

On this particular day, one of my other customers had rescheduled so I had the whole day to just work on the exterior of this car, so I thought what the hell and really did a number on the paint.

While my partner got to work on the interior, I got to work figuring out the best combination was going to be to restore this car from what could only be called flat gray to its true mirror black. This turned out to be the best result:

I have recently become a very big fan of the Lake Country Purple Foamed Wool pad, especially when using it with the Meguiar’s Ultra Cut Compound 105. No matter what I tried with other pads, the M105 always gummed up on me a bit, but this pad seems to keep it to a minimum. It seems to be the “missing pad” from my collection and I use it as my “Go-To” pad for compounding.

I chose the Lake Country Green Very Light Cutting Pad for this second step since since I still wanted to do a little more work on the paint that a pad geared more toward a final polish may not have been aggressive enough. I knew that it would take A LOT more work to really get this car back to show room condition, but I did want to really do some work to impress the customer. I went with the M205, because well, they were made to be used together and I like that I can make a couple (usually 3-4) passes before the M205 becomes too thin..

After performing these two steps, I washed the car again with the Gilmour Foamaster II Foam Gun filled with Chemical Guys Citrus Wash to remove all the dust from the body of the car and to make sure I had removed all the M105 and M205 from the surface of the car before moving onto my next step.

To apply the EZ-Creme Glaze, I dialed back the speed on the Makita all the way down to 600 to just give me a little bit of help to minimize the appearance of any scratches that were deeper into the clear coat and the color itself. As I mentioned, the customer ONLY wanted a coat of wax, so I wasn’t overly concerned with getting every defect out of the paint. At this speed was able to do three passes on each section before the EZ-Creme dried up. The EZ-Creme is a great product to use as a final step before applying your wax or sealant.

I went with a sealant rather than a wax for my final product because I knew that the vehicle was just going to get beat up again, and I wanted the customer to remember the work I put into the paint.

Before:

After

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

When the customer came to pick up the car he was thrilled. He never expected that it would look the way it did. I did inform him that I did more work then what he was paying for, and of course he was happy about it.

I was recently contacted to estimate the cost of repairing what was described to me as spilled paint damage. Apparently a can of spray paint exploded in the garage this car was parked in, and someone tried to remove it with a Scotchbrite pad. After reviewing the car, and trying to remove the paint with mineral spirits, thinner, and clay, I decided a light hand wet sanding with Meguiars 2000 grit paper and compounding with a few SurBuf pads was in in order.

There is certainly extensive damage to this thin factory paint. I wanted to be conservative in sanding as this car has only 3k miles, it will need some clearcoat for the future.

I like to use white buckets for anything I’m going to touch paint with. The white provides a contrast to any debris that may be in the bucket that could damage the paint. This is a 2 gallon bucket I use only for wet sanding. I always add a little soap for some lubricity, and let the paper soak until it curls plus 15 minutes before I use.

Some may not have a air compressor and D/A to use a sanding system, so I’m going to focus on hand sanding. I use a Meguairs Backing Pad to help reduce “finger marks” and apply even pressure across the paint. You will also want a squeegee and some towels handy. The squeegee is needed to clear the surface of water and check your work.

In this case, I am trying to remove damage from a previous sanding. What I need to do is make the paint as even as possible. In the picture below, you will see that after a few passes with the 2000 grit, there are still “shiny” areas. these are low spots from the prevoius damage. I could stop here and start polishing, but there is a high likelihood that these marks will remain visible post-polishing. I could see that the previous damage follows a “North – South” direction. To make my sanding most effective, I sanded in an “East to West” direction to take down the damage and try not to make the “trenches” created by the first repair attempt deeper or more defined.

Here is that damage after compounding with a SurBuf R pad. No good…

The grille was hit heavily with paint. Its flat finish does not respond well to polishing. I was either going to paint this grille, or polish it will wool to remove the paint, knowing that it would have a glossy appearance after. The chrome was a bit too soft to save, the Scotchbrite pad marks were not coming out…

The headlights were lightly sanded with Meguiars 2000 Grit paper also, and polished with a Yellow Lake Country 4″ pad. I love using the smaller pads. They were new and came up with no problem.

After sanding the bumper, hood, 2 fenders, and passenger door, I polished using Meguars M105 on my Porter Cable D/A with a SurBuf R series pad. These pads are incredible. I was hesitant to try and repair wet sanding marks with a D/A. I’m an old school body shop painter and was trained to polish with 1500 grit paper and a rotary with a wool pad. This Porter Cable D/A with Surbuf R Series pad has changed my opinion. It removed the sanding marks quickly and neatly. I really felt a step after M105 was not necessary, but followed up with M205 and a green pad, and finished with Opti-Seal.

Final comment – Keep your eyes on the damage in paint. The polishes we use are not magic, they are tools. Nothing replaces common sense. I think I was aggressive with both the sandpaper and Surbuf pads. I do have a lot of experience wet sanding paint, I know what can and can’t be corrected as I work. Only experience can teach you that. I look through the water and watch the damage disappear as I sand and polish. If I can’t see, or there is not enough proper light, I don’t proceed.

Surbuf pads are highly recommended for repairing this level of damage, you may need 4 to 6 to do an entire car. I used three for this repair.

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About a month ago I was given the pleasure to travel just north of San Francisco to Tiburon and work on this stunning Nero Daytona (black metallic) F458. This being one of the first deliveries to the Bay Area, the car had already clocked a staggering 300 miles on the odometer. Although, as we’ll see from the pictures, the owner of the car does in fact drive it! The cards for this car played out as follows: A proper wash and decontamination, a mild polish over the course of a day and a half, some interior cleaning, engine bay detailing, and a couple coats of wax to top everything off. In total, there was about 15 hours put in to the car over the course of two days. As many professional detailers will reiterate, YES even brand new cars can benefit from a proper and thorough detail.

Now on to the goods! The pictures:

I already knew what to expect as it’s been well documented from various articles on this blog how poorly Ferrari’s are prepped form the factory. So with that in mind, I began to assess the damage. Some mud splashes here and there:

General accumulation of dirt from the rain we had gotten earlier that week

And then I started finding all of the “presents” left over by the boys at Maranello! Polish residue and splatter all over the car:

… Including the engine bay!

Once my initial inspection was complete. I started with the decontamination. I always start with the wheels first. Not wanting to replace five figure carbon ceramic brakes, I didn’t use any chemical wheel cleaners, simply a medium dilution ratio of Chemical Guys Citrus Wash and various brushes.

And to get rid of all the polish residue found around the car, I used a boars hair brush, and diluted Optimum Power Clean.

The car was then washed with the two bucket method, and dried. It was then time to inspect the car in the sunlight. I was waiting for the holograms to show themselves!

With the initial in-sun inspection complete, and the car properly decontaminated, I got in the car to pull it in the garage. What an amazing view the one analog dial, and two LCD monitors provide!

I then inspected the paint using various lighting sources from 1000w halogen lights, to 120 lumen LEDs, to the Brinkmann Dual Xenon Light.

Using the line down the middle of the hood as a natural 50/50 indicator and the 1000w halogen lights, you can see the left side of the hood is finished off, and hologram free, while the right side still has plenty of holograms to be removed (towards the top of the picture).

Once the half of the hood that I tested combinations on was completely finished down, I pulled it out in to the sun for the true correction results.

Remember, this is what we were starting with:

Ferrari must have had detailers in mind when they made the little triangle that used to be what the mirrors on the F360 and F430 were mounted on gloss black. I was able to squeeze my buffer on to this small panel to make sure the correction of this area matched the rest of the car.

After:

By far the most heavily damaged area of the car were the rocker panels. I guess whom ever prepped this car after paint gave up after wet sanding and very heavy compounding!

Some careful work with a 3″ pad, extra blue painters tape, and steady polishing yielded the the results I was after.

This is the area between the 3rd brake light and the “F E R R A R I” badge looking a bit messy:

And then it was all cleaned up:

The rear bumper and license plate area was also fairly heavily damaged.

And then after:

Once the polishing was complete I moved on to the exhaust tips.

The wheels were polished with an all-in-one, and then sealed with a spray-sealant.

The engine bay was finished off as well:

The interior was vacuumed. The gorgeous seats with its tan leather and black daytona inserts was protected with Leatherique Pristine Clean, as well as the rest of the leather hides.

And finally, the finished product. After 2 days, 15 hours of work here is the final result:

Thank you all for taking the time to look at my photo journal of detailing this outstanding Ferrari. Please feel free to leave any questions or comments below.

If you’re a detailing enthusiast reading through some of our how-to articles, or ones where we showcase the entire detailing process on a particular vehicle, you may have picked up on us pro detailers talking about 1-step and 2-step polishing. And if you’re a detailer or hobbyist, you probably know that this refers to how many pad/polish combinations that we use to complete a job. So given that, you can assume that using PoliSeal on a white pad would be a 1-step polish, and using Meguiar’s M105 with an orange pad followed by Meguiar’s M205 on a black pad would be a 2-step process.

Now that we have the basic definition established, let’s take a much closer look at the terms because each type of process can be broken down even further (especially the 1-step).

The 1-step Polishing Process

As we’ve already agreed, a 1-step polishing process means just that…completing the job with one pad and polish combination. All 1-steps aren’t created equal however, because there are a lot of different factors involved that determine what combination we used based on the desired results we’re looking for. As professional detailers, or even weekend warriors, we’re faced with decisions based on the condition of the vehicle, the level of correction that we wish to achieve, the amount of time we have to work within, and the budget that the customer has established. I have full details that I do (wash, wheels, machine polish, interior, etc) that only take me about 3 hours WITH a 1-step polish, and then I have the same basic package that will take me 8-10 hours with a 1-step polish. How can this be?

Let’s take a look at 3 different examples of 1-step polish jobs so you can get a better idea of what all is involved.

The Basic: This one would fall into my 3-hour “complete detail” package that I referred to. For this one, I would typically use Optimum PoliSeal and a white polishing pad on a Porter Cable 7424XP buffer. What I hope to achieve with this level is to remove light haze and very light swirls on the paint, deep clean the surface, make a noticeable difference in the gloss level, and add a layer of protection. With a versatile product like PoliSeal, you can use it very quickly and make a big impact in the overall look and feel of the finish, or you can take your time and work it much longer to achieve an even greater level of defect correction. If the vehicle just needs a quick touch-up, or there are time / budget constraints, then this type of 1-step polish can make a significant difference. For detailers just starting out…this should be a staple package being offered.

The Intermediate: When you step up to the intermediate level 1-step polish, you’re typically looking for more defect correction capability than what the basic would provide, yet you still want it to be relatively quick. With soft paint (Acura, Lexus, Porsche), you can get very good results even at this level…upwards of 60%~80% in some cases (not severe defects, and on easily correctable paint like Porsche). When I need to perform a detail at this level, I’ll typically grab for Meguiar’s M205 polish with a black or white pad and the PC. The reason I go for M205 is because it’s a non-diminishing abrasive polish…meaning it works quickly and finishes down very fine in most cases. Depending on how much correction you’re going for, you can expect to add a couple of hours to the amount of time it would take you on the basic 1-step.

The Advanced: When performing this level of a 1-step polish, you’re typically going for as much correction as you can while at the same time finishing down very well for a 1-step polish. You can’t go too aggressive otherwise it won’t finish down well enough to be a finished product. If you go too light of a combination then you’re giving up a lot of potential correcting power. You’re also not as concerned with time or the customer has a bigger budget to work with when performing the advanced 1-step. So what polish/pad/machine combination do you go with? Well, that depends on a lot of different factors…what kind of paint you’re dealing with (hard, medium, soft), what color the car is, and how bad of condition it’s in just to name a few. For most cars, you can use Menzerna Power Finish (PO203S) on a white pad with the PC (or rotary) and achieve some pretty amazing results. Menzerna polishes utilizes diminishing abrasives that have to be completely broken down to achieve the best results. This takes patience and time, but you will be rewarded in the end. For a total detail inside and out with this level of 1-step machine polishing, I can easily take 8-10 hours from start to finish (including time spent on applying a sealant afterwards). If I’m doing this level, I’m taking the time necessary to ensure that the finish is as good as it can get for just a 1-step polish. I’ve worked on cars with this level before that have had a lot of swirls and holograms, and I’ve achieved better than a 95% correction rate! (see BMW M3 article).

So as you can see, there are a lot of different ways of conducting a 1-step polish. It can be from 3 hours, upwards of 10 hours. It can provide light correction, and it can go all the way up to almost perfect. So knowing what you have to offer, what polishes work at what levels, and what exactly you can achieve at each one, you should be able to provide the perfect level of polishing for the price or the time you have to work with.

The 2-step Polishing Process

As we had previously defined, the 2-step polishing process means that you’ve used 2 different polish/pad cobinations. The first step is typically an aggressive polish or compound teamed up with a cutting pad. The second step utilizes a finishing polish and pad to remove any marring leftover in the paint from the first step, and to further refine the finish. If you were to just stop after the compounding / heavy polishing step, the paint would be left with marring, light swirls, and / or holograms (also referred to as buffer trails).

Even within the 2-step category however, there are different levels that you can work with depending on the desired correction level, time, and/or budget. If you want to achieve a high level of correction with a stunning finish, then you could do a straight 2-step with combinations like M105 / M205, Menzerna Super Intensive Polish / 106FA, or one that I have been using a lot of lately…Meguiar’s M105 on a PC followed by Menzerna 106FA on the rotary. You simply hit each section one time with each combination, and the correction level is what it is (typically it will be very good!).

Another option that you have is to stick with the traditional 2-step combination, but spend more time on the compounding step to achieve a greater level of correction. Some paints are hard, finicky, or have deeper imperfections that won’t correct after one pass with your compound, and you need to work them a bit in order to achieve that next 10-15% of correction. So you may have some parts of the car where you can simply utilize one compounding step, whereas others you may have even 2 or 3. Now some people may argue that if you compound a section twice, then it counts as 2 steps (leaving you with a 3-step after you do your finish polishing). Semantics aside, you’re still just using 2 different polish and pad combinations. The goal at this level is to achieve the highest level of correction as possible while finishing down so fine that all you can see in the paint is pure and clear reflections.

So when I’m evaluating the finish of a car, and I know that by speaking with the customer they’re interested in major correction, I may break the pricing option down based on whether I’m doing a straight 2-step, or one where I’m chasing defects with multiple compounding stages.

The Hybrid Polishing Process

Hybrid? Would that make it a 1.5-step process? What I mean here is to mix the processes up as required; once again being based on the condition of the car, the type of paint, and the budget or time you have to work within. Let’s say for instance that your customer wants the car to look as good as it possibly can, but just can’t afford or just doesn’t want the “full deal”, multi-step process that you have to offer. If for instance it’s a dark colored vehicle, you especially know that you can only go so aggressive with a 1-step process otherwise you’ll leave holograms. But if you go with a less aggressive combination, then it will still have a lot of visible swirls particularly on the horizontal areas that you see a lot (hood, trunk lid, tops of fenders, etc). I was faced with a similar situation this past summer on a black Ferrari 612 where the customer wanted his car to look good, but he didn’t see the need to go for the full-blown detail. Knowing what time budget I had to work within, I came up with a hybrid system for this particular car where I did 2-step polishing on all the areas that can be seen, and 1-step polishing on the lower parts of the car. So in the end the parts that you can’t see in the direct sunshine ended up with the amount of correction that I said could be expected for that price range, and the upper parts of the car came out almost flawless. So I kept to the customer’s budget, I didn’t donate my own time (nobody likes working for free!), and the customer received a product that looked better than he was expecting. The moral of the story here is that you don’t have to get stuck in the definition of either a 1-step or a 2-step polish. The formula was perfect for this car and for this particular customer and it worked out well for everybody. Whatever you do however, don’t perform a hybrid polish and try to sell it as a multi-step polish! If you sell somebody on a near perfect finish, and you only achieve 50% correction on the lower parts, the customer won’t be happy, and word will spread fast! Sell the hybrid as something between the 1-step and 2-step, and make it clear to the customer that the visible areas of the car will look better than the lower parts.

Well, that about covers it! Hopefully you now have a better understanding about the different polishing processes, and what exactly is involved. Don’t get yourself caught up in thinking that each level only has one possible result because you can obviously see now that you can go a lot of different ways within each one of them.

Thanks as always, and be sure to post your comments and questions below if you have any.

]]>http://www.detailedimage.com/Ask-a-Pro/1-step-2-step-the-various-types-of-polishing-processes/feed/22Reason to carry more than one product…http://www.detailedimage.com/Ask-a-Pro/reason-to-carry-more-than-one-product/
http://www.detailedimage.com/Ask-a-Pro/reason-to-carry-more-than-one-product/#commentsSat, 18 Dec 2010 14:09:10 +0000http://www.detailedimage.com/Ask-a-Pro/?p=3558Just a little something that I believe that pro detailers, weekend warriors, and DIY details all should understand…that there is a necessity to carry more than one specific product for each step.

Just the other day, while working on a 2008 Range Rover, I came across a situation which luckily I was able to overcome. I have been in this same situation a couple of times, but this time it was a little more serious.

After compounding the car for heavy defect removal with Meguiars 105 compound, I moved onto the next mid level polishing step. Usually, my go to product for this step is menzerna 203 on a white LC polishing pad. However, based on the cool/damp climate conditions in the warehouse I was working in, and the soft paint, my go to combo wasnt working out. It was very sticky and leaving the finish VERY hazy, worse than 105 did! Luckily, I had Meguiars 205 on hand, and just by switching to that product, I was able to finish the second step with ease! Without a different mid level polish, I would not have been able to get the car finished with the conditions at hand, which would have led to an unhappy client, something I would never want! After the 205 step, I followed with Menzerna 85rd on a black lc pad for more gloss and wetness!

Moral of the story: be prepared to tackle any situation with an assortment of products just in case you find yourself in a sticky situation!

… I read your Honda/Acura article about soft paint but I can’t seem to find any info on the VW paint. I was thinking of getting the PC 7424xp and the Meguiar’s M105/205 and the Blackfire Wet Diamond sealant. I have clayed both cars in the past but I was looking for advice on polishing these cars and a good high heat sealant. I don’t wan’t to mess up either car, especially the GTI…

Thanks for a wonderful site.

Best,
Ken

Given we have done quite a few VW/Audi and work closely with a specialized VW/Audi shop who outsources his detailing services to us, we figured we could post some good examples of how VW/Audi paint reacts to polishing, and give Ken plenty of ideas and inspiration.

Ken, every car brand has their own specifications and requirements for the paints and processes they use to apply them to their vehicles. Moreover, each specific paint combination will result in different hardnesses. Further, environmental wear takes place at different rates, which will affect the hardness and condition of the paint prior to polishing. So no two vehicles are exactly the same.

With this said, we can certainly group manufacturers into general categories based on typical results found among their vehicles. Honda can be categorized as softer than average. In general, Audi/VW can be categorized as average to harder than average. There are always fliers in the data, and specifically Honda has probably the softest paint we have dealt with (Berlina Black). VW has one if the hardest paints we have dealt with (B5 Passat in Burgundy), and one of the softest (2010 VW GTi in non-metallic black). In general, lighter colors seem to be harder than darker colors. Again, there are always fliers in the data.

Now, with your VW/Audi ready for polishing, how do you decide on polish and pad combination? Easy, use one of the most versatile combinations out there, with a Dual Action polisher like the PC7424: Meguiar’s M105 on an Orange Lake County pad + Meguiar’s M205 on a Black Lake County pad. This combination will work on almost any paint and provide plenty of correction and great refining capabilities. If you have a soft color, you will have to refine further by adding a step with something like Menzerna PO85RD on a Blue Lake County pad at very slow orbit speed. If you have a hard color, you can always increase the cutting action of the M105 by using an advanced technique like the Kevin Brown Method. Just make sure the M205 on black is indeed removing any marring caused by the aggressive M105 KBB Method. 2 to 3 passes with M205 on black usually takes care of anything left behind by an orange pad. White pads with M205 typically require further refining on anything but the hardest of paints. White pads are a great option for M105 for softer paints.

As far as sealants that resist higher temperatures, any of the sealants will work. Sealants resist heat cycles much better than waxes, and will last longer on your vehicle in your latitude. I like Klasse, although it is sightly more difficult to apply and remove. Blackfire has a deeper look, and goes on and off much easier. But any sealant will suffice. More important than what sealant to choose now, is the need to routinely wash and re-apply sealant to your vehicle. I would use a high-shine Quick Detailer like Dodo Juice Red Mist after each wash, and a new coat of sealant every month or two or after any harsh cleaning. Once you get the paint smooth and polished, sealing and subsequent applications will be very quick and easy.

Pictures!

Here is a picture of the Burgundy Passat Wagon we were unable to correct further. Not only was this vehicle in severe condition, the owner was not interested in further correction and had a budget to stick to. The vehicle still looks great and glossy, but further correction will require sanding and more time. Tools used were M105 on a Yellow pad using the Makita Rotary + a product equivalent to M205 (D151) on an Orange pad.

Before:

The challenge:

Looks great done:

But you can tell the deepest RIDS remain given the right light angle:

This B5 Passat Sedan had significant swirling and RIDS as well, but corrected much better with just M105 and an Orange pad:

This black Golf TDi had super soft paint. These defects required just a very quick pass of M105, and the rest of the paint just needed a light jeweling with Menzerna PO85RD and a blue pad on the PC 7424

Before:

After:

This 1990 Audi 100S showed years of abuse. It was corrected with M105 and an Orange pad.

This Audi A8L had very soft paint and very severe defects. Compounding with anything more than an Orange pad and M105 left too much marring, so we opted to do multiple passes with the Orange.

This Audi A6 could have used some more time spent on correction, but M105 and an Orange pad made quick work of most of the defects in the paint:

Before:

During:

After:

This Passat CC in Metallic Black had just 2000 miles. Its paint was quite soft. Here we are using the slight increase in power from the Makita Rotary Polisher to up the cutting power of M205 and a Black pad. We used this finishing polish to correct the RIDS and swirls!

Looks good! Needs further refining but the M205 corrected sufficiently:

Also on this vehicle, the Paint Protection Film installed over the front end lacked clarity and needed some help. We used the PC 7424 with a Black pad on speed 5 with M205 to restore the transparency of this film, and reduce the appearance of the film per se. Notice the tape lines in the paint protection film where we have yet to apply polish showing the color and opacity the film had when we started. This made a huge difference in how the car looked overall, and make the film virtually invisible.

Hopefully this helps shed some light on how to tackle your VW/Audi’s paint!

OK, so we had a little fun with our F40 Preview, and I actually got a bit overwhelmed with the amount of emails I received asking for more information, photos, and a date when the completed project would be available. The plan was to produce the movie with Jason Statham as Craig Reed, and Robert Downey Jr as Todd Cooperider, but unfortunately neither were available in the near future. Since the whole project then got put on hold, I decided to just do the old fashioned write-up! Note to self: time to fire our agent and get one that can make our movie happen with the actors of our choice!

Ferrari F40: A True Supercar!

Very few supercars in history generate as much passion in automotive enthusiasts as the Ferrari F40. The aggressive yet timeless styling, the raw feel of a race car disguised for street use, the intoxicating sound, and the amazing performance all make for a car that will always hold a special place in automotive history.

The F40 was designed and built to commemorate Ferrari’s 40th Anniversary, and the designers and engineers pulled out all the stops when developing the successor to the rare and very limited edition 288 GTO. Although manufactured from 1997 through 1992, only a total of 1315 F40’s were ever built.

Powered by a 2.9L, 471hp twin-turbo V-8 engine, the F40 was capable of 0-60 runs in just 3.8 seconds, and a top speed of 200mph! It was the first road legal production car to reach 200mph.

While some supercars look very similar to others, there’s simply no mistaking the F40 for anything else out there. In my opinion this is one of the most stunning vehicles ever produced!

A Professional Detailer’s Responsibility to Preserve History

When a professional detailer is commissioned to perform paint correction on an F40, or any highly collectible vehicle for that matter, it is imperative that the goals are to make the vehicle look much better while at the same time preserving the history. The level of expectations should be thoroughly discussed and agreed upon by both the detailer and the owner of the vehicle, and they should be realistic as well. These expectations will be based upon the current condition of the vehicle, the types of defects that are present, and where the defects are located. There are so many (thinly painted) edges, corners, and tight areas that present a high level of risk when doing paint correction on an F40. A highly skilled detailer will know how to evaluate the defects and risk factors, and will know when to say when. Trying to chase down defects that are in dangerous spots is very risky when working on a car like the F40, and in my opinion the risk of damage or too much paint removal is not worth getting another 5% worth of correction. On this particular vehicle for instance, there were areas that I was able to achieve 95% correction, while others were 75%-80%. Some may have opted for wet sanding on a few of the remaining defects on this car, but quite frankly I think that would have been an irresponsible approach. Because of the Carbon and Kevlar-weave construction on the body of the F40, the paint thickness is very inconsistent, and there are areas where you can clearly see the texture and weave of the body. This causes potential problems when trying to measure thickness, which leaves you guessing in some areas. So should you decide to take such an aggressive approach with wet sanding to fully correct a deeper scratch, you could either cause immediate damage by striking through the paint, or you could possibly thin the paint so much in that area that there won’t be adequate paint thickness to do any further corrections down the road. There are simply some defects that should remain as part of the vehicle’s history. Paint preservation should always be top priority!

Something else that is important on vehicles like the F40 is to preserve originality as much as possible. That’s not to say that if the car originally came with buffer trails, holograms, or swirls that they shouldn’t be corrected because I’m sure that when the car was designed and developed it was never intended to get shipped that way (and many Ferrari’s do). But if the cars notoriously came from the factory with paint drips or runs, then they should stay that way.

Having the opportunity to restore a vehicle like the F40 is an honor and a big responsibility. The work you do will become part of the car’s history. Everything gets documented and passed on to future owners. The more precise documentation on the history of the car, the more that it can add to its value. The key here though is to become part of the car’s history, and not to create your own history. What that means is that if you’re doing paint correction and preservation (or any other type of work on the car), it should simply look good when you’re done without leaving any traces of evidence that you were there.

Introducing Craig Reed

Many people in the Ferrari community are well aware of Craig Reed’s long history of being a highly skilled Ferrari mechanic for the better part of 30 years now. Craig has a large following of clientele that have trusted him to work on their prized possessions for many years, and cars are shipped to him from around the country on a regular basis. Craig also serves as a Technical Advisor to the Ferrari Club of America – Ohio Chapter. Craig’s mechanical abilities never cease to amaze me, and I always enjoy watching him perform his magic. He’s tearing down and rebuilding engines, he’s fabricating parts, he’s doing his own re-plating, he’s managing restoration projects, and he’s doing it all with a high level of passion. I remember walking into the shop one day right after he put a 308 motor back together, and wish I had a camera with me that day. He was standing beside the purring engine, staring off into space while peering over the glasses that were perched at the end of his nose. One end of a stethoscope was in his ears, and the other was being placed in different spots of the engine while he listened carefully to what was going on inside. He was in his own little world; just man and machine. I’m sure he’s walked over into the detailing studio and found me in a similar state of mind while I stare into the paint.

I’m very fortunate to have Craig around to help me out with the major detailing projects. When there’s a need to disassemble one of the Ferrari’s that I’m working on, Craig’s the guy making it happen for me. When you look at major projects that I’ve written about like the Mini-Restoration on a 355GTS, you can see all of Craig’s “behind the scenes” work. This time around, I wanted to give credit where it’s due, and I wanted to showcase some of Craig’s work at the same time.

The Evaluation and Game Plan

Despite having only 3,500 miles on the odometer, the 20-year old Ferrari was still, well…20 years old! The condition of the paint was actually pretty decent for a car of this vintage, with a medium level of swirls, scratches, and other light defects. The undercarriage, suspension, brakes, and engine compartment however required a lot of work as it appeared as if it had ever been detailed, it was a very long time ago. There were also a few other small fixes and repairs to be done to various components, and we had plenty of opportunity to freshen up hardware and hoses.

My goal then was to achieve a high level of correction to the painted surfaces, while Craig’s was to freshen up as much as he could within the engine compartment.

Ferrari F40 Paint Correction Detail

The first step in the process is always to fully prep the finish for polishing during the wash and claying process to ensure a clean and smooth surface that is fully stripped from any waxes or sealants. For more information on this process, please refer to my article on How to Prep a Car for Polishing.

For the F40, I started with the hood to develop a process and combination of pads and compounds / polishes that would work for the entire car. Each polishing job is different, and requires some testing to see what’s going to work on that particular vehicle, on that particular day. Everybody asks how one knows what combination to go with, or they ask if (x) polish and (y) pad would be good for (z) car. With experience, you typically have a good idea of a starting point based on the car you’re working on (some paint is soft, some hard), what level of defects you have to work with, and what level of correction you’re aiming for. While this will help us narrow down our selection, it’s still not an exact science because some cars simply react differently from others. It’s simply a matter of having an outline based on what you have to work with, and then testing your combination to see if it achieves the desired results. Once you have your system dialed in, then you can proceed with the rest of the vehicle.

The single stage F40 paint is similar to that of the 288 GTO in that it required a more aggressive approach to get the desired level of correction. I wouldn’t necessarily call it “hard” paint like on the 430 or 458, but it still required some massaging. I found that for the compounding stage, the best combination was Meguiar’s M105 on my Makita rotary teamed up with a Lake Country Cyan Hydro-Tech Pad.

In this photo, you can see that I am using the 4″ spot pad to get better access to the defects next to the raised edge on the hood. The smaller pad in areas like this will give better cut, and provide more control as well which is very important when dealing with delicate and highly valuable vehicles.

With the exception of the main part of the hood, and the roof, the F40 required the used of 4″ pads on the rest of the car! Because of the smaller pad surface you have to work with, you can plan on spending a lot more time polishing. There are just very few large, flat surfaces on vehicles like these and you have to take that into consideration when calculating the amount of time it will take to work on the them.

In this photo you can get an even better example of why the F40 takes so long to polish. Not only am I using the small 4″ pad, but in many areas like this I can only use a very small part of that pad. The trim is completely taped up to protect it from the pad and backing plate, and the entire process is slow going. I don’t recommend polishing areas like this right after downing a few cups of coffee as you want and need a steady hand!

And yet another example of why the F40 requires so much time…there’s a tremendous amount of hand-polishing required! As you read through this post and look at the photos, take note of all the ducts, vents, and other small areas that can’t be polished by machine. While you’re not going to achieve the same level of correction by hand as you would by machine, you can still achieve good results when using Meguiar’s M105 compound and M205 Finishing Polish.

Normally my process would be to go around the car for the compounding stage, and then when finished I would start at the beginning again with the finishing polish stage. For the F40 however, I decided to change it up a bit and work in sections. For the front end in particular, I did all of my compounding, and then moved onto finish polishing with Menzerna 106FA polish and a Lake Country Tangerine Hydro Tech Pad before moving on to the rest of the car. The front end alone took an entire day! The reason I did this is because a vehicle this complex can become a daunting task. I knew that it was going to require a tremendous investment in time, and I wanted to compartmentalize the car a bit to keep each area fresh. The compounding stage in particular requires a lot of focus, and you can quickly get both physically and mentally drained when all you’re doing is compounding all day long (for multiple days). By breaking the car down into sections, I was able to compound, then do my finishing polish, and I knew that I was “done” with that section. There are also a lot of challenging areas on the F40, and it’s good to keep your focus on that specific area until you’re finished. Had I done it the “traditional” way, I’d have to get my mind wrapped around those angles and set of challenges, and then do it all over again once I came back around for finishing polishing days later. I would get into a zone so to speak while working a specific area until I was finished with it, and then move on.

Now on to the driver’s side of the car, I’m working on the lower rockers. This area is typically bad on all cars, but on the F40 it was in pretty rough shape because it’s quite difficult to get in and out of the car without having your shoes or leg rub up against it. I wasn’t able to get the camera angle and light just right to capture the severity of the defects, but you’ll just have to trust me on this one…they were bad!

After polishing:

The door handle area on both sides of the car had quite a bit of deeper scratches from years of handling. What made this area even more challenging was that the edges of the recessed door handle were so thin that you could actually see through them. I used plenty of tape, and did a lot of very slow passes to safely clean up as many of the defects as possible.

Driver’s side before:

After:

Passenger side before:

After:

When working around all of the dangerous curves and thin edges of the F40, being cautious was top priority. On the fuel caps for instance, the edges had already been compromised at some point in the past so I made sure that the buffer never came close to preserve as much paint integrity as possible.

Here as well you can get a good idea of the amount of taping that is required for protection. I went through several rolls of Meguiar’s tape on this car!

The left side of the car at this point had been completely compounded and polished, and a quick check in the halogen shows it to be defect free now with a significantly improved level of depth and gloss.

Another early morning in the shop as I start to work on the passenger side of the car.

Another check in the halogen after compounding and polishing reveals a finish that this F40 hasn’t seen in many, many years. As the swirls were removed and the finish was leveled, the true shade of red came out at the same time.

The huge door sills on the F40 were challenging to say the least. They had some of the highest level of defects, they are very hard to reach all of the areas, and the multiple edges were very thin (I could see right through the paint in some areas when using my Brinkmann Dual LED inspection light). I taped it all up, and polished to get as good as I could while being safe. In the end however, these areas achieved about a 75% correction level.

Here was one of the many areas that couldn’t be reached with a machine, so I viewed the defects through the light of the Brinkmann while polishing by hand to get it as good as I could.

And yet more polishing by hand…

The back end of the vehicle had by far the most challenging areas, so I saved it up for last and made it like a mini-project in itself. There were a lot of different issues to tackle while back here for sure!

The tail lights get swirled up and hazy just like the paint does, and they can be polished out as well. When you look at the first photo here, the lens doesn’t look too bad…that is until you look at the second, “after” photo.

Before:

After: Look at how the clarity has been improved by removing the haziness.

The painted surface underneath the emblems typically get neglected, and there’s no way you can fully polish them out to match the rest of the surfaces without removing them. So…I had Craig remove the Ferrari emblem at the back of the car (which wasn’t the easiest task!). Look at how hazy the paint is where the emblem goes:

And my wife wonders why I’m so physically worn out at the end of the day!

At this point I have finished all of my compounding and polishing, and am ready to clean the paint and apply a sealant. For compounding I used Meguiar’s M105 Ultra Cut Compound and Lake Country Cyan Hydro-Tech Pads. For finish polishing I used Menzerna 106FA Super Finish and a Tangerine Hydro-Tech pad in some areas, and Menzerna PO203S Power Finish and a Black Pad in others.

Before we move on to other aspects of the detail, let’s take a quick look at how our paint is looking now that it’s completely polished and sealed:

The color is looking much better, and the gloss and clarity have improved considerably as well.

Now that is what red is supposed to look like!

First of all, this angle really shows just how beautiful this car is! Secondly, it makes it painfully clear why it takes so long to polish the F40.

Got Gloss?

And yes, I did polish all the way inside these vents by hand!

The embossed F40 logo was all polished by hand because of the thin edges.

Now that I’ve given you a taste of what the paint looks like, let’s move on to other parts of the car and to show a bit of what Craig had to work on.

F40 Engine and Suspension Detailing / Restoration

This was the part of the restorative detail that required a lot of meticulous work combined with years of mechanical expertise to do it all correctly. You’re simply not going to get this level of engine detailing by a detailer, so having Craig Reed to team up with is a huge bonus for me.

And the service that he/we performed wasn’t limited to simple cleaning of engine, suspension, and brake components. Many items were painted, some hardware and miscellaneous odds and ends were re-plated (in-house), appearance repairs were made, and some hardware was replaced. Craig himself had roughly 25 hours invested in his portion of the restorative detail on the F40.

So as the process started, Craig (pre-haircut) began to disassemble the engine.

Things are really starting to happen now! Each item removed would be fully detailed, repaired, and / or painted as required.

Now we’re in business, and Craig Reed can really get busy bringing the engine bay back to life.

While Craig was busy working on cleaning up 20 years of grime in the engine bay (proprietary tools and methods), I started on the wheels. Given the design on these massive Speedline rims, it’s near impossible to properly clean them while they’re on the car. We had everything removed in order to get to the suspension and brake components, so it made the process much easier. I soaked the wheels in P21S Wheel Gel to break down all of the brake dust and grime.

Wheels are soaking in the gentle and safe cleaner.

All clean! They would eventually get sealed up so that they will resist the buildup of brake dust.

Now I’m going to go into a series of before and after photos for specific components and areas of the engine, brakes, and suspension. There are no dressings or protectants in any of the after photos…

Before

After. Craig went back and touched up the “USA” writing as well before putting everything back together.

Before

After

Tubi Exhaust before

After

Even items like these were fully cleaned

After

Suspension before

After (once again…no dressing was applied so you’re seeing the true condition)

Before

After

You want to talk about attention to details…notice how some of the coils are slightly bent in this photo. Craig went in and individually straightened each one of them.

Before

After

Now the engine, suspension, frame, and brake components are all cleaned up and ready for Craig to put back together once he’s finished with some painting, re-plating, etc.

There were small cosmetic repairs here and there that needed to be tended to…in progress

After

The factory protective film at the front of the car was delaminating on both sides of the car, so Craig went in and repaired them accordingly

And even some of the decals within the engine compartment were tended to as well to re-adhere edges that were coming up

Here’s the master Craig Reed himself at work (post hair-cut…Jason Statham would have been a dead ringer for the role!)

Craig actually re-dyed the fabric on this hose to restore it to like-new condition

Even small details were taken care of…note the buildup of washer fluid around the bracket before

After

From a wide view you can see the headlight mechanism on the underneath side of the hood.

When I zoom in, you can see that all of the mechanical components and hoses were completely detailed as well (all of the gray stuff you see on the left is factory applied and original)

We’ve covered about all areas of the F40 now from paint correction to engine and suspension detailing to cosmetic repairs. Craig and I both put a lot of passion into the restorative detail on this piece of automotive history, and it is properly freshened up for many years to come.

Ferrari F40 Images: Finished Product

Truly a beautiful sight!

The F40 ended up with a very high level of gloss and depth once the detail was completed.

For those of you who have never seen an F40 in person, I wanted to give you some perspective on how low the car sits by having my 10 year old son Cameron stand next to it. The F40 is one of his favorites.

What a stunning automobile!

And finally…

Well I certainly thank you for taking the time to go through all of the details and photos on this successful project. Craig and I both put a tremendous amount of effort into it, and we were very happy with the results (as was the owner of the car).

If you’re an F40 owner that wishes to have a similar level of restorative detail, or the owner of a special vehicle(s) that desires to have an appearance and mechanical makeover performed by a highly qualified team, please get in touch with Craig and me and we’ll gladly discuss options. We regularly arrange the transport of vehicles to Columbus from across the country, so no need to worry if you’re not in the Ohio area.

Just about every auto manufacturer uses different paint / clearcoat formulas…some are hard as granite and very difficult to polish (Audi), some are soft as butter and a swipe with a microfiber towel will mar the finish (BMW Jet Black), some are finicky (Rolls Royce), and some are just a pleasure to work with.

I’ll put Porsche into the category of a pleasure to work with (at least the modern Porsche models). It’s soft and therefore corrects easily, but not too soft that the slightest wrong look will cause marring and swirls. Each car is different, and everybody will have their individual needs, however all things being equal a Porsche will require much less time for paint correction than most cars. So for Porsche owners out there, a full correction job on your car will require a smaller investment.

This past week I worked on a beautiful 997 Turbo in black. It had a moderate level of swirls, but I knew that I would be able to make it look really good in a relatively short amount of time. My client just wanted a mid-level paint correction on it, so I we decided on a simple one-step polish to get rid of 50% – 75% of defects and restore as much gloss as possible. With previous experience on modern Porsche paint, I knew what I could expect in a given amount of time on the car and figured that my correction estimate would be low, and my time estimate would be high (I’d rather under-promise and over-deliver than the other way around!).

For those of you who have been following my work for some time now, you have gotten the opportunity to follow along with me while I perform full details and major paint correction on some of the most beautiful cars in the world: Ferrari! You’ve seen the art of detailing on such Ferrari’s as the powerful 599 GTB, the stunning Challenge Stradale, the ultra-rare 288 GTO, and one of my most popular posts in the Mini-Restoration Detail of a 355 GTS.

What I bring to you today however is quite special: The 2010 Ferrari 458 Italia!

Not only is this particular 458 one of the first to arrive here in the States, but to my knowledge it’s the very first in North America to go through such an extensive and fully documented paint correction detail. My client brought this beauty to me the day after he received it so that I could get it started off correctly and fix the paint issues that typically come from the factory.

Introduction: Ferrari 458 Italia

The 458 Italia is the successor to the popular mid-engined F430 and is much more than a simple makeover! Weighing in at a mere 3042 pounds, the 560HP V-8 motor will propel the 458 from 0-62 mph in a scant 3.4 seconds and reaches a top speed of 202 mph! The 7-speed, double-clutch gearbox is a technical marvel in itself, and the shifts from the paddle shifters happen almost instantaneously (I went for a ride in it and can vouch on this claim). The ride was firm but not harsh by any means, and the stunning interior ranks up there with finishing touches and amenities found in high-end luxury cars. While the shape and overall beauty of the 458 is art to your eyes, the intoxicating sound coming from the exhaust is art to your ears. Ferrari didn’t merely hit a home run on the Italia…they knocked it completely out of the park.

Evaluation:

As I stated previously, my client took delivery of his new 458 on Monday afternoon, and I had it in my possession already on Tuesday morning. We had an open appointment set for months, knowing that the car would need some work when it arrived via air freight from Italy. Before working on it, I was taken for a ride in this technical marvel and all I can say is that it’s everything that the media raves about…and then some! We arrived back at the shop, big smile on my face, and ready for a closer inspection and evaluation of the paint.

Now I’ve worked on enough Ferrari’s to know that they come from the factory in less than stellar condition, so I was prepared for the worst. Many people assume that the more you pay for a vehicle, the better that it would look but that’s not always the case. Many of these low production, hand-built vehicles simply don’t have the quality of paint finish that the mass produced vehicles do…I know that sounds a bit crazy, but it’s reality.

I know that I said that I was prepared for the worst, but when I saw the reality of what I had to deal with, I just shook my head in amazement! The car had been attacked at some point with a high speed rotary buffer with an aggressive wool pad by somebody completely unqualified for this type of work. This is not the first brand new Ferrari that I’ve done with this same affliction, and it’s not the only 458 that has been treated the same way. I know a great detailer in Hungary that has already worked on several of them (Europe received theirs sooner than North America), and he found the exact same issues. I should be completely desensitized to this with all that I’ve seen, but I’ve got so much passion for cars (especially Ferrari!) and for paint perfection that it’s hard for me to simply accept it for what it is. However…Ferrari brings me a lot of business for proper paint correction so I shouldn’t complain too loudly!

The following shots were actually taken after the pre-polishing prep process (that’s a lot of P’s), but I wanted to show them to you first so you can get a good idea of what we have to work with. You can typically get a pretty good idea on the condition of a vehicle before going through this process, but it’s after you strip any waxes, sealant, glazes, or fillers when you can get a true reading (many of these products hide the actual condition).

When looking at this photo, you can tell that the car is an absolute beauty and you’d never think that it needed to be “detailed”.

Look how nice this fender is…gotta love that new showroom shine.

What was that about the beautiful showroom shine? Now let’s take a look at that same fender with my Brinkmann Dual LED paint inspection light. Let me warn you though, the following photos are not for the faint of heart.

What you see here is what I was referring to earlier…swirls, holograms, and deep scratches left over from overly aggressive polishing / compounding techniques. When you do this, you need to go back with medium and fine polishing steps to clean up the mess that was left from the compounding stage. On a brand new car, or one that has been properly polished, you should only see clear reflections of the light itself. Another way to inspect is to look at the vehicle in the direct sunshine (the light of truth).

Right rear fender:

This is in the same area as the photo above. The haziness that you see on the lens is paint overspray, indicating that there had been some spot / repair re-painting done after the vehicle was built. I was able to detect the faint blend line above this area (and verified it with my DeFelsko paint thickness gauge), but it was too faint to capture with the camera. Once again this is pretty typical, and doesn’t indicate a problem with this car in particular.

This is on the front bumper, which was one of the more severe areas. As you can see, there’s no direct reflection of the light in this photo.

I could have randomly picked out 30 more places on the car to take the inspection photos, and they would have all looked like the photos above. Sure some areas were better than others, but there were no areas on the car that I would have deemed to be acceptable.

Pre-Polish Preparation:

Before we get into polishing, we need to prep the car to ensure that we have a truly clean surface to work off of. Any previous waxes, sealants, glazes, or embedded contaminants can interfere with the polishing process.

In this shot you will see how well the water is beading. This tells me that there is some kind of protection on the surface that needs to be stripped (glaze, wax, sealant). I saw how bad the condition was even with a concealing product on it, and knew that it would look even worse once it was fully removed.

First up were the wheels. Since this beast comes with Brembo Carbon Ceramic brakes, it’s imperative that we use a very gentle cleaner to prevent any contamination or damage to the carbon rotors. Since I cannot afford to buy a damaged set of them (although they’d look great sitting on my desk!), I chose to go with P21S Wheel Gel.

To get into the deep barrels of the rims, and behind the spokes, I use an EZ Detail brush.

Now that I have the wash process complete, it’s time to further decontaminate the paint surfaces by claying the vehicle to remove any embedded contaminants. Even on a brand new car you’ll be amazed at what the clay will remove from the surface. Here I am using the new DI Fine Clay with Dodo Juice Born Slippy as a lubricant. For more information, please refer to my article on How to Properly Use a Clay Bar.

After claying, I rinsed the vehicle again, dried it off, and taped up all of the trim and any places that have potential for being damaged by the buffer. Here I am using the brand new Meguiar’s Professional Masking Tape designed for automotive use.

During the washing and claying processes, I’m always looking out for problems or challenging areas that may affect the polishing process. When I saw this point (the taped up part) sticking out on both sides, I thought that they looked like places that could easily be damaged with the buffer if not protected. Unfortunately the person behind the buffer at the factory didn’t think this through the same way I did and burned through the very tip of it on one side of the car (I could tell by the touch-up paint that had been applied to it). So for detailers that will be working on a 458 soon…watch out for these! They’re located just behind the doors (the vertical seem you see), and are part of the panel with the Pinanfarina emblem on it.

The Polishing Process:

The process at the beginning of every detail is to do a test section to figure out what combination of pads, compounds and / or polishes will be required to achieved the desired level of correction. I had heard from my buddy Jesse in Hungary (Apollo Auto) that the 458 paint reacted differently than its predecessor the 430, so I was already expecting a test session to get the system dialed in. For the compounding stage to cut through the heavy defects, I used an Orange cutting pad with Meguiar’s M105 Ultra-Cut Compound. This did a tremendous job, and any remnants were cleaned up in my finishing stage.

If you look in the photo above, you can see the vertical tape line I am using for my test area. After I polish it I remove the tape to give me a 50 / 50 comparison look at the before and after condition of the paint.

In the photo below, you will see what I came up with after the first trial with M105 / Orange. There are still a few remnants of wool cutting marks (from the factory) in the polished area on the right, but I was able to get them completely cleaned up. When you look at the difference between the left side (un-polished) and the right side (polished), you can see that there will be a tremendous difference in the overall looks of the vehicle when I am finished. When the finish is hazed over from the swirls and defects, it prevents pure light reflection and actually hides the true color of the paint. So if you thought that the very first photo I showed made the car look good, then just imagine what we’re going to end up with when I’m all done with proper leveling and polishing of the paint.

I’ve got my compounding system down, so now it’s off to the races. Here I am working the Meguiar’s M105 with an Orange cutting pad on the Makita rotary ranging from 1200-1500 RPM’s. The keys to successful compounding with M105 are proper pad priming and pressure (regardless of whether you’re using a random orbital or rotary buffer). As you can see, I also prefer to use the Meguiar’s W-66 backing plate which helps tremendously when you’re working on a car with as many curves as Ferrari.

Here I am working on the areas that lead to the big air intakes at the back of the car. These places are quite challenging because of the curvature, and because of the all of the dangerous curves adjacent to them (lots of taping!). I only used the larger 6.5″ pads for the top surface as you see here, and then I had to use the small 4″ spot pads for the majority of the intake. These areas take a tremendous amount of time to do right, and coincidentally they were the areas that received the most wool pad abuse from the factory. On the right side of the car, I switched to a Porter Cable 7424XP buffer with a Surbuf Pad and M105…found it much easier to work with and didn’t need to spend as much time with the 4″ spot pad on the rotary.

At the back of the car, the defects were extremely bad, but I wasn’t able to capture on camera the true severity of it all. Here you can get just a small idea of what I had to work with.

After compounding, you can tell that I restored a tremendous amount of clarity to the paint by removing the heavy wool defects that existed.

Moving around the back of the car, I’m now on the passenger side and working my way forward. This is in the area of the air intake. Once again…heavy defects before.

Afterwards you can see a huge difference in the clarity and color of the paint!

I’m fast forwarding now to the front end of the car. Because of the tight angles, dangerous curves, and small parts that I had to work with (not to mention some of the worst damange on the car), I ended up spending 2 hours just compounding the front bumper alone! Here I am working the small lip at the bottom of the car. For areas like this, it requires lots of patience, and a steady hand.

Before:

And after:

Not only does Meguiar’s make a great product in M105, but the bottles also make great tools to prop up the hood! Here I am “cutting in” the edges around the hood before switching over to the bigger 6.5″ pads. You must be very careful when doing this and weight the top edge of the pad so that you don’t create too much heat at the thin edge of the hood…otherwise you risk burning the edge. I also use slower speeds just to be cautious.

Here’s the condition of the A-pillars! Yes…they even took the aggressive wool pad to them as well!

After using my 4″ orange spot pad (sorry…just a tad out of focus).

Mirror before:

Mirror after:

After many hours of compounding, I finally finished up and proceeded on with finish polishing to remove any haziness leftover from the compounding stage, and to refine the gloss and clarity even more. Now here’s where I noticed the difference in the clear coat in comparison to previous models. Normally at this stage after using Meg’s M105 I could go straight to M205 Ultra Finishing Polish and a Tangerine pad on the Porter Cable and it would easily remove any marring from the compound, and refine the finish even greater. When I tried this combination, I restored a lot of gloss but found that I still had light defects remaining. Hmmm.

When I have come across very hard paints that wouldn’t allow me to jump from M105 to M205, I have used Menzerna PO203S Power Finish on a slightly more aggressive pad to bridge the gap. Power Finish has just a bit more cut than M205, and finishes down very fine as well. Although it takes more time since it is a traditional diminishing abrasive polish that requires proper break-down time (M205 is a non-diminishing abrasive that works very quickly), I no longer had the option of the quick-finish with M205 and simply had to stay working late!

So away I went with Menzerna Power Finish and a Green light cutting pad on my Porter Cable 7424XP on speed 6 with moderate pressure through the breakdown cycle, and then did my last several passes on speed 4.5 ~ 5 with little to no pressure to make sure that I was finishing down as well as I could.

I started working on the Italia on Tuesday afternoon, and it is now Thursday evening! On jobs like these I can usually expect another 5 hours or so of work after I have finished polishing, so I know that I’ve rounded third base and am on my way to home plate. I cleaned up my work space a bit to get ready for the next day, sat back and enjoyed the beauty of the now properly polished 458, and closed up the studio for the night and would start back up the next morning. It’s been a long 2.5 days so far!

With that behind me now, it was time to further clean the paint from any polish residue and prep it for a good bond with my sealant. For this I use Chemical Guys EZ Creme Glaze on the Porter Cable, with a soft Blue pad, at speed 6. It’s a relatively quick process (maybe 20 minutes to go around the entire car), but it makes a big difference both in terms of looks, and for how well the sealant bonds.

After application of the EZ Creme Glaze, I moved on to the application of my sealant of choice…Blackfire Wet Diamond. It looks great on every color of vehicle, and provides durable protection for many months. This too gets applied with the Porter Cable (by hand in the tight areas) on a Blue pad at speed 3.5~4.

Don’t forget to apply your sealant and / or wax to the door jambs!

Blackfire Wet Diamond needs some time to cure, so while that is happening I take the opportunity to work on other areas of the car to keep the workflow moving along. If I would have had another day for the Blackfire to finish curing, I would have applied a coat of Chemical Guys Ezyme Natura wax. I have done this combination on several Ferrari’s in Rosso Corsa, and it looks absolutely beautiful. I’ll be working on this particular car again here in a few weeks just before we show it at the Arthritis Foundation Classic Auto Show, and will apply the Ezyme at that time.

Moving on to the wheels, I dressed the tires with Chemical Guys Extreme V.R.P. Dressing. It looks pretty glossy when first applied, but after a short period of time it dries and leaves a nice, matte finish. To ensure that I have an even application, I’ll go back over the tires a second time after ten minutes or so with my applicator, but I won’t apply any more product to it.

Then I sealed both the outer surface and inner barrels of the rims using Klasse Sealant Glaze. Sealing them will provide a better gloss to the finish, and it will make them easier to keep clean in the future.

Next up is the engine compartment on the 458. Now you may think that the engine bay wouldn’t be very dirty on a brand new car, but all Ferrari’s go through extensive test driving on road and track after they’re built. There’s also significant ventilation around the rear glass that allows water, dirt and everything else to get in there as well. I cleaned up the engine bay with Optimum No Rinse (dilluted to quick detailer ratio in a spray bottle). As you can see, it’s not real easy gaining access in there to clean the engine and the small back window. I was standing on a platform, and covered the fenders with soft Great White microfiber towels to protect the finish.

The trunk area was cleaned and vacuumed, and all hard surfaces treated accordingly. The owner of the vehicle opted to keep the plastic on the cases for now (I had to call that out otherwise somebody would have given me a hard time for not removing it!)

The exterior is complete, and I needed to take care of a few areas in the interior of the 458. There wasn’t a tremendous amount of work I needed to do in there, and didn’t get many photos of the process. I cleaned up the leather with Leatherique Prestine Clean, cleaned and treated hard surfaces with Meguiar’s Quik Interior Detailer, removed any shipping plastic that remained on various items, and cleaned the glass with Meguiar’s Glass Cleaner.

I think that about wraps it up. Are you ready for some finished after-shots?

Ferrari 458 Italia Detailing Images:

After 25 hours worth of work refining the finish of this beauty, I am proud to present plenty of juicy pictures for your viewing pleasure. The 458 finally looked the way it should have from the factory, and both indoors and outside in the sunshine it looked nothing short of breathtaking. Because the 458 is such a work of art, I took (and posted) a tremendous amount of images…hope you don’t mind!

Grabbing onto this steering wheel just may think your name is Fernando Alonso, and you’re sitting behind the wheel of an F1 car!

9,000 RPM redline!

Unfortunately this photo didn’t turn out as I had hoped because the seats are a big source of pride for the owner…he drew up the design and sent them to Ferrari with his order. They obliged!

Now for what I feel is the defining design element of the 458 Italia…the front end and headlight area. I have plenty of photos of this area below simply because I wanted to capture as many angles as possible. It looks fantastic in photos, but nothing compared to what it looks like 3-dimensionally in person.

I’ve included 2 different photos here of the same vent next to the headlight just so you could get appreciation for the sculpting that goes on here, but also for what it took to polish these out! For this small area, it required polishing by hand, by Porter Cable, and by Makita rotary polisher. This was quite challenging and time consuming, but the end result was well worth it.

Brembo Carbon Metallic rotors and massive calipers

The tail lights were badly swirled as well from the wool buffing process at the factory, but through several polishing steps I was able to restore them to full clarity.

Such beautiful lines on the 458. How about that level of gloss?

Let’s take a quick look back at the original “before” photo of the front bumper with the Brinkmann inspection light:

Now this is what it looked like afterwards (and how it should have looked from the beginning).

Now let’s pull the car outside and see how it looks. As with the rest of the photos, there has been no post-processing other than to re-size and add a border.

Now that’s a mean looking face!

On this shot I actually focused on the 458 Italia logo on the dash…

I loved this shot…

Now for a series of sun shots, or as we call it in the detailing world: the light of truth! If there are any swirls or defects, you’ll see it in the direct sun.

When the car was covered in swirls and wool-induced defects, there was no way that it would be capable of producing this level of reflections.

Another one of my favorite shots:

I certainly appreciate you taking the time to follow me along in the detailing process of this stunning new Ferrari 458 Italia. It was great to have been commissioned to correct one of the first examples to arrive in North America, and equally enjoyable to share it with everybody.

If you’re waiting for the arrival of your 458 (or have just received it), and you’d like for yours to look as fine as this one now does, please get in touch.

Should you have any additional comments or questions about this article, please reply in the comment box below.